Altered Reality
by GeneralSherman
Summary: Satya Vaswani's life is routine and orderly, just the way she wants it. But once she's assigned to New York and meets her new boss, she starts to find that not only that her reality isn't as it seems, but that even her most steadfast beliefs will be called into question. How she deals with it will change things forever. (Sequel to War of Peace, set before Fallen Angel)
1. Chapter 1: Greater Designs

Walking down the gangway of the dropship felt like being led to her own hanging.

Sombra was the first to admit it: Something had gone wrong with the EMP at Versailles, something that she hadn't been able to fix. Because of this, she had to share a bumpy hour-long flight back to Talon's HQ in Venice with the two deadliest assassins on the planet, both of whom had had personal satisfaction tantalizingly ripped away from them as a consequence of her mistake, or rather her failure as they had so bluntly put it upon boarding.

 _Mistake, failure, doesn't matter_ , she had thought. _Just don't be an ass about it_.

The entire way back, in the dim lights of the ship's main bay, not a single word had been spoken. Reaper and Widowmaker had taken their seats, the latter doing so after bandaging the bullet holes in her thigh and wiping up the trickling blood, and not said a single word. Normally, Sombra had observed that the evil eyes they tended to point her way were accompanied by empty threats or at least a snarl, but not this time. The primary indicator of their frustration had been when Kowalski had stumbled in, the only Blackwatch operative who had returned in time; The rest she didn't know or care to know about. His voice rendered extremely nasally because of his broken, blood-spurting nose, he'd barely had time to utter:

"Reaper, sir, I can explain. In my defense, he-"

Before his boss drew a shotgun and took his head clean off with one bullet. Sombra had watched, caught off guard by the suddenness of it, as the hapless lackey's corpse tripped backwards and rolled out of the ship just before the door slammed shut and the aircraft lifted off. She eyed the revenant closely and kept one hand behind her back, fingertips glowing with purple energy, as he returned his weapon to within his overcoat and snarled viciously.

Now, one silent and tense flight later, the three assets were departing the ship and making their way across the hangar deep underground the estate that the headquarters was in. Sombra had departed first, though not of her own accord; Reaper refused to carry Widowmaker out before the hacker had gone first.

 _Great. Now they're using me as a meatshield._

With the angry accomplices tailing, she'd picked up her pace through the hangar in the hopes of avoiding what she knew was coming, but a deep, Nigerian-accented tone perforated through the air.

"I take it that things didn't go exactly to plan?"

Sombra froze in her tracks like an animal caught on a busy road before slowly turning her head in the voice's direction. Fifteen feet away stood Akande Ogundimu, The Successor, the current Doomfist and head of Talon's Inner Council. Everything about him, from his tall, extremely well-muscled frame and eloquent speech pattern to his regal mannerisms and impeccable dress, commanded both respect and fear. Even without his eponymous gauntlet, he looked and sounded a man who would share a polite conversation with someone one moment and, with nothing personal, crush their skull with his bare hands the next.

He spoke again, this time with more emphasis. "I asked you a question."

Sombra almost thought she could feel tiny beads of sweat dribbling down her forehead. She about-faced towards Doomfist and put on her best unphased posture, but she was barely able to keep it from shattering like a pane of glass when Reaper's sadistic chuckle rang out from behind.

"I don't know. Did it?" he hissed.

"I was speaking to the commander of the mission." Doomfist added as he strolled up to his assets.

Sombra's dread turned to smug condescension in an instant. She rotated on her heels to see where Reaper now stood in place and smiled deviously at him.

Doomfist grew impatient. His arms crossed behind his back and his eyes narrowed. "Well?"

Reaper's answer was slow, but without hesitation. "The primary objective was successful. The Omnic dignitaries are dead."

"And Overwatch?"

Reaper tightened his fist until it shook. "They... got away." he spat.

Doomfist regarded him with fake surprise. "Really? I expected more from you, especially when opportunity presented itself so kindly."

"You have her to thank for that."

Doomfist looked over at Sombra and raised an eyebrow. She grinned appeasingly before conjuring a hologram that showed countless headlines that screamed bloody murder, once-jubilant crowds that had turned violent on each other, and greasy commentators pointing fingers in wild directions. Most importantly, while the feeds showed and talked plenty on Overwatch and the Junkers that had been arrested, not a single second was devoted to Talon.

With the elegant raise of a hand, he commanded her to close the hologram and she obliged.

"Despite setbacks, we have achieved something great." he said with ambition glinting in his eyes. "Before tonight, the world had almost let itself believe the lies of progress that peace uses to entice the weak. Now, we have laid bare the truth, and we must be ready to spread it to the masses. With Overwatch incapacitated and hated, they will need to hide under their rocks like cockroaches. This shall provide us with ample time to capitalize and move our pieces for the next step in humanity's evolution. The seeds of conflict must not go untended, especially when the time is ripe as it is now."

At this point, an automated gurney whisked up behind Widowmaker, who let go of Reaper and gingerly let herself lie back on it. The machine then slowly floated off out the exit of the hangar. Reaper simultaneously deformed into his black mist and shot off through the doorway.

As Sombra tried to leave, Doomfist placed a hand on her shoulder. "Do not think that you are getting away unnoticed." he said.

Sombra gently lifted his hand off and adopted her demeanor from earlier. Her hips swayed to one side and she twirled her hair with one finger. "You know how it is. They laugh, they monologue, they torture, and in the end they kill more time than they do Overwatch agents."

Doomfist took no notice. He didn't even look in her direction. "True, but what they don't do is take risks. It is clear that you underestimate your enemies, an error they have learned not to commit. Perhaps they are correct and I should shorten your leash."

Seeing that he still wasn't looking at her, she scowled and flipped him off, but quickly repealed it when his eyes flicked her way.

"Nevertheless, you are still needed. Lacroix and Reyes will be out of commission until O'Deorain can tend to them. We will need another asset to take advantage of this opening, and it falls upon you to find them."

"Don't worry. You know I don't let you down, boss." she said with a hint of her trademark flippancy.

"Except when you do." Before he walked off, he now faced her and looked her sternly in the eyes. "You have a chance to amend your errors. For your sake, I suggest you take it. Remember: There are always greater designs. Take care of them, or they will take care of you."

As he left, Sombra stood alone, frowning. _Always playing the_ persona dura _with his fancy talk. It'll be fun to see what he's like when I'm_ _through._

Leaning against a wall next to the door, she summoned another hologram, this one containing extensive profiles of every single Omnic that had perished in the ballroom. With one hand she scrolled through the list, while with the other she sifted through them for anything of worth. Fat and easily hacked bank accounts, of which there were many, were always of use, as were connections between other, still-living persons of influence. Dirty secrets among this crowd, however, were surprisingly light. She'd found over the years that the big names always had the juiciest pieces of blackmail material, but this crowd was thinner than most with regards to those.

 _Guess they really were trying to make the world a better place. Oh well,_ _what can you do?_

What she did find she stored away for later, but what she didn't find angered her. Despite having unfettered access to beings who had occupied every social, economic, and political ivory tower she could think of, she couldn't find a single bread crumb that led towards The Conspiracy. The only things she did find were retreads, connections that she had made years ago.

 _Shit._ She swiped away the hologram and sighed loudly. While this wasn't the first time that potential big leads had dried up, it was certainly one of the most disappointing letdowns. Worse still, it had been one of a string of dead ends she had gone down recently. Avenues that had held promise, like Volskaya and Lumerico, had turned out to be further away from the centre of _La Conspiracion_ than hoped.

She closed her eyes and curled her arms over her torso. It was at times such as these that got her most on edge. Without a steady stream of information, her ultimate goal threatened to slip away, her web becoming useless. After twelve years of endless searching it was almost complete, but now it stood on the verge of stagnation. Her 'greater designs' had been greater than anything Doomfist could ever have dreamed of, yet they were so much more fragile.

Then it hit her. Like a freight train going a hundred miles an hour, it hit her.

 _'Greater designs', hm? I wonder just how great._

She called forth her hologram again and rapidly went through the files of the dignitaries, looking for two names, neither of which were at the event but were part of one detail that she had previously thought had no importance. When she finally found what she was looking for in the file of one of the guests, she separated it into another hologram, where it flourished into a plethora of photos, news clippings, and videos. It was this single topic that she hoped would provide a saving grace, that would finally get her to the heart of it all and lift the veil that had covered The Conspiracy since the beginning.

A wicked smile crept across her face and her eyes twinkled with promise. The names she had found would suit just fine, both for her ends and Doomfist's request.

The first, Vishkar. The second: Satya Vaswani.


	2. Chapter 2: Hierarchy

"... And in the third quarter, we can expect all current developments to increase their output by fifteen percent, as well as at least six new projects in the downtown regions and suburbs of the city to be greenlit."

"What about local resistance? The board's faith in your work is shaken every time a revolt comes out of the woodwork in your little mudhole." the rotund man on the other end of the television screen inquired, obviously unimpressed.

Sanjay Korpal clasped his hands together and nodded his head appeasingly. "Rest assured, we have taken extensive measures to pacify the populace of Rio. Public demonstrations occur daily in the marketplaces and the names of what few firebrands are left are plastered across every street corner."

"The board will want something quantifiable to compliment that statement."

Sanjay raised a finger to buy a moment as he searched the holo-table's control board for the right button. He smiled and smirked lightly to try to lift the beady eyes of the rotund man off of himself. After a few tense seconds, he finally found what he was looking for. The blue-tinted charts that rose from the tabletop dissolved away and their place was taken by several mugshots and looped videos of Vishkar paramilitary escorting scowling Brazilians away in handcuffs.

"With the arrests of several of dos Santos' accomplices in the uprisings last month, general unrest has been down by forty percent. Security presence has been tripled in active zones and surveillance now covers eighty nine percent of the area within city limits and the greater metropolitan territory surrounding it. If that rebel decides to show his face in Vishkar territory again, he will be a dead man with nowhere to hide and no one to turn to."

The overseer finally lightened his sour mood, but not by much. Sanjay's posture shot upright and as the deliberation continued, he dropped his head slightly and looked up at the screen, submissive but anticipatory.

The rotund man sniffed in loudly and stroked his silvery goatee as he spoke. "Very well. You always manage to come through, Sanjay. Not by much, but still. The board will extend your tenure as chief of operations in Rio."

"Thank you very much, Executive Gupta. I give you my word that I will continue to meet your expectations."

"That's what I'm worried about." With that, the screen cut out with a flash of static and changed to black.

Sanjay let out the breath he'd been holding in as he turned off the display. As he slunk out of the meeting room and fell into his seat in his office, he wondered how on Earth his job had gotten so hard. Eighteen months ago he'd been in a good position, organizing field operations for the Indian megacorporation's assets and dealing under the table with potential new partners. It was work he knew he could do well in and serve both his employer's interests, and he had done it with impressively ruthless zeal. Now, because of Vishkar's importance in the eyes of his moonlighting job, he'd been skyrocketed up the ladder and now all of the company's branch in Rio de Janeiro reported to him, and juggling the two was proving to be Herculean.

Still, he thought, despite having to answer to two formidable organizations at one time, his new position afforded him a considerable amount of power. Where previously he'd been little more than a messenger and a handler, he now had sway beyond what he'd thought possible within the rigid structure of Vishkar, ironic considering the materials that they worked with. Not only was this influence able to be put to use for his own gains within the company, but it allowed him to finally be able to go toe-to-toe with the rest of the Inner Council during their regular spats. Not only was he in the cabal that dictated the course of history, he was the equal of some of the most powerful men, women, and... things, to have ever lived.

And yet, it wasn't perfect. Even though he practically ran an entire city and sat in the presence of gods and monsters, he was still kissing up. On one side, the board saw him as an ambitious worm, sniveling his way into positions he didn't deserve. Case in point: the meeting he had just gotten out of. On the other end, those gods and monsters on the Council looked upon him with pity often, even more so than they did the other corporate giants and political machines at their table. The Omnic financier had always regarded him a little off, Minister O'Deorain was consistently derisive, and Doomfist and his pet Reaper were domineering and simply bone-chilling, respectively. Thankfully, he had an ally at his side. That's where _she_ came in.

Suddenly, the holoprojector on Sanjay's desk activated, a blue tint widening out from an origin point in the middle of the structure. As it grew, so did an image of a lavender sugar skull.

"Speak of the devil." he murmured.

The picture morphed gradually until it showed Sombra, standing with one arm crossed over her torso and her other propped upright, her elbow resting on the crossed arm. She had her usual sly look on her face and her eyes twinkled.

"Always pleasant to see you, Sanjay. You still liking your job? I saw it and thought you'd just love to have it."

Sanjay rolled his eyes quickly, thinking that she wouldn't catch it. "Charmed as always."

"Now now, sarcasm's my thing, remember? You've got a lot to thank me for."

Sanjay frowned. "Of course. To what do I owe your call?"

Sombra chuckled mildly. "Short and sweet on the pleasantries, are we? Oh well, I can run with it." She unfolded her arms and brushed back her hair over to one side. "You remember that little talk we had, oh say, about eighteen months ago?"

Sanjay broke eye contact upon her mentioning and loosened the collar of his suit. His eyes blinked rapidly and silently wandered around the room for some time. All the while Sombra watched patiently, enjoying every moment of him squirming.

Finally, she broke the awkward silence. "I'll take that as a no, so let me remind you _amigo_. I assume the name Guillermo Portero is a familiar one, _si_?"

Sanjay didn't answer, but he did finally look back at her, this time with a face that showed distinct unpleasantness. As the e-mails of his rapport with the disgraced CEO popped up on the projector, his expression grew worse.

"Vialli wasn't happy that you didn't get Lumerico into the fold, and Doomfist sure as _infierno_ wouldn't be either if he learned that you were working with a usurper."

Sanjay rustled in his chair; It was a hard, but important moment. He'd sat at the Council's table, watching as Doomfist and his shadowy right hand returned from their "meeting" with Vialli. Sanjay's poker face, a trick he'd mastered during in his previous position, had hidden him from certain death at that point, but there were no guarantees as to the future, which was why Sombra approached him. She had a way of breaking through his exterior and exposing the vulnerabilities within, and she had done so masterfully after the meeting in Venice was adjourned.

That night, she had promised him safety for a price, and now the time had come to return the favour. Though she lorded over him with his most damning secrets and the thought of potential duplicity on her part kept him up at night, he also knew that what she promised was something he desperately wanted. All he had to do was kiss up to one more person just a bit longer. Once he had it, he would never be subservient to anyone.

His face hardened and he sat up straight. "Name your terms."

"I'm so glad you asked." she said slyly. She cleared her throat before continuing. "After Gabe turned Versailles into his own personal fiasco, _el gran jefe_ wants another high-skill piece to add into play. He asked me to find someone and I thought 'I know who can get me just the right person.'"

"Well, Vishkar has many exceptional field operatives. Why come here?"

Sombra laughed at his ignorance. "I think I'm beginning to see why your board hates you. Just think for a moment. Who's in Rio that would fit the bill? I'll give you a hint: You know her pretty well."

It didn't take long for her implication to be figured out. When he did, he was surprised, but intrigued. Satya Vaswani had proven herself time and again to be dedicated and highly competent and she would certainly fulfill Doomfist's needs, but he wasn't sure of the full game being played.

"What's in it for us?" he inquired.

A coy smile spread across Sombra's lips as she cocked her head to one side. "You'll see. All you need to do is pull a few strings, get her off to a good start, and I'll do the rest. Once she's done what she needs to do, you'll be in the clear. Vishkar will be all yours and the big boss won't be able to touch you."

Sanjay's game face restrained his enthusiasm, but as usual she saw through it.

"I've already sent you a file with the details on it." she said. "You'll want to get to work nice and quick; I can't _wait_ to see the results." Her holographic image leaned into Sanjay's face, where she raised a finger and tapped his nose. "Boop!" With that, the feed cut out on her end and Sanjay was left in the dark of the office.

He rolled his chair to the side of the desk that his computer rested on and brought up the instructions with a few quick types. As he skimmed over the file and saw Satya's profile, included with several pictures, he wondered if she had even the slightest idea of what she was getting into, if she could ever be prepared for what has coming up. His conscience was swiftly wiped clean though, when he justified it as not only part of his ambition to break away from the hierarchy, but as also part of Talon's grand vision of a better world, a reason he knew she would readily accept.


	3. Chapter 3: Upheaval

Change came at her hard and fast.

It had started when Satya Vaswani had been awakened in her company apartment in Rio, even earlier than the crack-of-dawn hour she was usually up at. A loud ringing on her phone had roused her and when she answered it, half asleep, her prosthetic right arm still taking shape from her hard-light conjuration, and in no mood for anything not life or death, it obnoxiously announced that an urgent message had been received from Sanjay Korpal. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes after she had reached for her phone, she glanced over the document, skimming through it as she tried to acclimatize to the ungodly time she was up at. She rolled over, reached for her headboard next to her bed and turned on a lamp, wincing as the light cut through the room and her eyes slowly adjusted to the sudden change. When they finally did, she went through the article she had been given in more detail:

 **To whom it may concern,**

 **This is a notice that the receiver, Ms. Satya Vaswani, has received a promotion from her current status as Architech of the Division of Rio de Janeiro within the Vishkar Corporation. This notice is also to inform the receiver that she has been granted a transfer away from her current Division. The board offers its sincerest commendations.**

 **The promotion in question will see her assume the position of Chief of Field Architecture and Operations within her new Division, that of The City of Higher New York within the Vishkar Corporation. These changes are effective immediately and the receiver is expected to be at Galeao International at precisely five-thirty AM, Brasilia Standard Time, to meet the private flight to her new position. Again, the board offers its commendations for her promotion and expects that she will show outstanding capability in her new station.**

 **Sincerely,**

 **Sanjay Korpal, Chief of the Division of Rio de Janeiro.**

Satya closed the window that the file was opened on and glanced at the wall across from her bed. Mounted on it was a small analog clock, ticking away with the predictable, soothing rhythm that she favoured over the silent time that her phone kept. From the light of her lamp, she could see the time read four-forty five.

She shot upright out in her bed and unfurled her bedcovers. In the unending bustle of the streets of Rio, she couldn't account for how much time it would take to go from downtown to the outskirts, so she had to make all possible haste in her preparations. Upon exiting her bed with great speed, a blue flash created by an elegant hand motion went through her bedroom and the rest of her apartment. As the glow faded after a few seconds, the holoprojector in the palm of her prosthetic hand showed an extensive inventory of all the most valuable possessions. Though she had always had the attention to detail to not need it, doing so served as a backup in time-sensitive situations. Her packing done, she headed out of her bedroom and for the front door, while a few more gestures materialized her business suit, a white and blue tunic over long grey leggings. Before she could change out of her night attire and into the workwear, however, she froze in her tracks as she realized something; She wasn't following her routine.

Every morning, no matter how busy she had ever been, she had always adhered to a strict schedule. Upon getting up, she fixed herself a cup of green Darjeeling and a trio of Indian rice cakes topped with a light curry, and taken at least fifteen minutes between her shower and leaving to practice her dancing, go through her motions and refresh herself. This morning though, had been so early and so chaotic that she had forgotten it.

 _Chaotic_. She shuddered at the notion. Everything she had ever been taught, everything she had ever seen since she was a young child in the miserable slums of Hyderabad had taught her that chaos must always be stamped out, that it brings pain and poverty to everyone it touches, and that those same people must be taught the error of their ways for letting it poison them. Chaos' natural enemy was order, and Satya had taken every measure to shut out chaos and keep order. Her morning routine, the clock on her wall, the dancing, the architecture, furthering the interests of Vishkar, every path she had taken had been to remove such egregious influences. Now, however, this was all being upheaved.

Her mind and heartbeat were racing. Never had she entertained the thought of forgoing her daily ritual. To do so would be simply unthinkable. Still, she was expected at the airport within an extremely tight window, and neither herself or Vishkar tolerated a lack of punctuality. More important still was the fact that she was getting out of the filthy city and leaving behind not only its rabble-rousing residents, but also the memory of that night in the favela.

She shut her eyes and slowed her breath, calling upon yoga techniques she had learned to calm herself in stressful periods. She repeated to herself " _Order through peace, peace through calm, calm through order_." A simple mantra that rang true even to this day.

 _Very well._ Her head cooled, she came to a satisfactory reason. _Vishkar serves the greater good. It always takes precedence._

As she changed and made a beeline for the door, however, she couldn't help but think that there was something missing. She stopped in the doorway and looked over her shoulder to do one final check. She surveyed her surroundings closely, looking over the familiar enclosure with close detail. The specific placement of the sofa, the perfectly aligned and polished mirror, the pristine white walls, the meticulous organization of the kitchen area. She had designed it herself, and it had become a part of her in a sense.

 _One chapter ends on the book of life, and another begins_. _Maybe this one will be better._

As she closed the door on her old home, the shutting of the door resonated through, and in her bedroom, the wall-mounted clock, so carefully aligned and placed, stopped ticking and fell slightly sideways on its mount.

* * *

She had been right: Even at this unspeakably early hour, Rio didn't sleep. She had to bob and weave through open marketplaces and sardine-packed traffic in the dark of night to reach the shuttle to the airport, all the while being bombarded with countless foreign smells, the percussive pounding of music and the calls of street vendors, and radiant shades of purple, green, red, and blue as far as she could see. The last time she had gone through this area of the city, the noise and unpredictability had overcome her, and she had had to rely on the kindness of a young stranger to see her through.

Satya's mind, struggling to block out the confusion and keep herself focused, lingered on the memory of the child. She remembered that the youngster had been dirt-covered and dressed in little more than rags, but her face was a diamond in the rough. Her warm smile and innocent eyes Satya remembered thinking of as an island of perfection in an sea of misery. Slowly, that image of beauty in the eye of the storm morphed into something hurt. The last time she had seen the young girl, her eyes had hardened with experience and burn scars had crossed her face. Even though she was in amidst a crowd of countless others, Satya was singled out by the child's angry gaze and was cut right through by it, silently being blamed for the fiery chaos in the favela, and rightly so...

 _That is behind me now_. Satya breathed in deeply as she continued onward towards the shuttle; It wasn't much further according to the GPS she had summoned. _I haven't seen her since then. She's probably fine, living in a new district, better than anything she had before. Yes, that's it._

When Satya finally arrived at the airport, she was promptly whisked out onto the runway by security guards in Vishkar-labelled uniforms and brought to a waiting business jet, the Vishkar logo emblazoned on the tail and Sanjay Korpal standing in front of the door.

"Congratulations on your promotion, Ms. Vaswani. I assume you are eager to arrive at your new position?" he said slickly.

"Most certainly." she managed to say before placing her hand over her mouth as she tried to conceal a yawn.

Sanjay chuckled. "Good to see you optimistic so early. We would have sent the notice during usual hours, but the order came directly from the top that they wanted you immediately. Don't worry, I have taken the liberty of having breakfast prepared for the flight."

She perked up at the mentioning of breakfast. At the same time, she thought she could make out the smell of her favourite curry on the rice cakes.

Sanjay could see that her attention was no longer on him and he laughed again. "Yes, there is tea in there as well and before you ask, it is green Darjeeling."

Lost in the aroma, Satya didn't realize she was being markedly unprofessional until she heard Sanjay's snickers, to which she snapped out of it immediately and resumed a proper posture. "Thank you, sir. You are too kind."

"Don't mention it." He gestured for her to walk with him as they stepped into the plane. "You can eat while you look over the file that has been prepared. I assure you, Higher New York is unlike any other city you have ever seen. Even Utopaea itself pales in comparison."

As the door closed behind her and before she took a seat, Satya looked out a window, back at the city she had spent the past two years in. Though much of the city gleamed with the pristine new Vishkar buildings, just as much was still enveloped by the old buildings and their cacophony of mixing colours and irregular shapes and sizes. Seeing the sharp contrast swelled up her need for closure, to solve the problems she saw and to see them to their conclusion.

Her reflection was interrupted by her overseer's rhetorical question. "Are you going to take your seat?"

A new life beckoned, one that promised more peace, more potential to solve problems, and more ways to bring order to a troubled world. She turned away from Rio de Janeiro and bid it a silent "good riddance."

 _Higher New York, here I come._


	4. Chapter 4: Similar, but Different

Higher New York, a city above all others, both figuratively and literally.

Satya had never been to the metropolitan wonder before, but she had seen countless pictures and holovids of it, and each one had only increased her amazement. None of it, however, compared to what she now viewed out the window of the jet as it neared its landing zone.

The city floated a mile above the original one, now known as Lower New York, making even its tallest skyscrapers seem like they were wooden toys. The Higher section itself was immense, a colossal rectangular shape floating over the entire five boroughs and even over parts of New Jersey and Long Island, all of it held in the air on the power of eight self-sustaining rocket engines placed along the corners. Within the elevated utopia's perimeter stood what enamored Satya more than anything else; Under a climate-controlled dome were countless modern skyscrapers and other buildings, each one a marriage of the rigid systems and planning of Vishkar and the creative, but orderly, flowing curves and ambitious designs of contemporary hard-light architecture.

From behind her, Sanjay spied her wonderment and smiled. "I told you it was unlike anything you have seen."

Satya could barely find words to describe what was below her. She turned around and adopted perfect posture and a regal facial expression to restrain her excitement. "Perfect." she whispered. "A testament to the order that we bring and the prosperity that it walks hand in hand with."

"I am glad to see you haven't forgotten what the academies taught you."

"I don't forget anything." she boasted. As a child, part of what had gotten her recognized and helped her ascend the ranks so quickly was an uncanny memory, a natural photographic memory that she had developed nearly to the point of total recall. She had always taken pride in the things that set her apart from her colleagues, and this one of the ones she enjoyed the most.

"Ah yes, those remarkable traits. They will serve you well. I wish I could see them in action in this new position."

She looked at him with an unsure expression. "I assumed you would be returning to handling. Your notice and the fact that you were waiting at the jet are standard procedures-"

"-That were insisted upon by the person who promoted you. I still have work to do in Rio. Between you and I, I'm waiting on a promotion myself. You'll meet your new handler when we arrive in the city."

"Oh." Her eyes dropped downwards so that she was looking at her feet. She rotated her chair back towards the window and sighed. _Another change._ "Very well then."

As she gazed back out the window, she saw that the plane had completely passed over the glistening jewel in the sky and was descending towards a patch of dirt directly north. Unsure of what was going on and a little nervous of any more changes, she looked back over at Sanjay, who was getting a refill on a mimosa from an Omnic flight attendant.

"Speaking of when we arrive, how come we aren't landing in the city? I read that the bio-dome has a retractable section just over the airport."

"True," Sanjay replied plainly. "But we are going to land to the north and enter the city from the ground."

"That's terribly inefficient. There's no reason to."

He smiled. "You're keen, but you don't catch everything. I have orders to show you around, make sure you get the lay of the land."

"From the top?"

"From the top. But even if it weren't, I would have done this anyway."

She was still puzzled. "What is it then? What's your point?"

"Wait and see. It will make sense."

When the plane finally landed, it was on a small runway with grass popping up from between the cracks in the pavement. Satya noticed slight jostlings as the plane came to a halt. _Unpleasant_.

She was the first one out of the plane. Stepping onto the tarmac, she surveyed the area until she caught sight of the city again. Craning her neck back in order to see it, it now looked like a floating citadel, a massive ship in the heavens, casting a shadow so huge that it even stretched out to this rural stretch several miles away. Still, though, she percieved it no differently. No other city had the prestige, amenities, or aesthetics of Higher New York, let alone have it all suspended in the heavens to be marveled at by the world.

A tap on her shoulder caught her attention. She whirled around and repulsed back, shooting Sanjay a stern look that immediately reminded him that she didn't like people touching her at all. He raised his hands defensively and gave her a look that indicated an honest mistake before pointing her in the direction of a self-driving hover-limousine. As they entered and the vehicle rolled its way towards the city, Satya could now see the Lower area up close. She had read that in the days before the Crisis, the old city had once been the shining centerpiece of America's east coast the same way the new one was now, how it had been a tightly-packed megacity that over its long history had attracted artists, movie stars, cultural icons, pioneers of fashion, and giants of business, who had walked the streets alongside countless immigrants looking for new lives and impoverished citizens eking out a living through any means they could. It was a striking similarity that she had noticed before, be it in her home or in Rio. _I guess some things never change, at least until now_.

As the limo entered the overcast of the city, the sun's warm covering began to fade away, obscured by the titanic object overhead. The car glided through several parks and suburbs, wild and untamed since the days of the Crisis, even still occasionally marked by the rusting corpse of a Bastion or an OR-14.

Satya was still confused. "I'm not sure what I am supposed to be seeing here, sir."

"You're not." Sanjay said bluntly. The car began to decelerate as he continued. "The purpose of this trip is just to your left."

She leaned towards the window on her other side, where she saw a towering complex that evoked memories of the cricket fields back home. A crooked, bullet-riddled sign above stated the building's name: Yankee Stadium.

The ballpark was pockmarked along its grey concrete exterior, a grim reminder that a proud city had been besieged once. As the limo began to circle the block, crumbled sections of the stadium came into view, where parts of the grandstand that had fallen away gave the building a Colosseum-esque appearance and a glimpse of what was inside. Where there had once been grass and painted lines now stood a shanty town in a dusty crater, packed with multitudes far greater in numbers than what the park had ever seen in its glory days.

For Sayta, it was a disturbingly familiar sight. Even more so was that many of the rag-wearing denizens sat in the upper levels of the park's exterior where watchtowers had been improvised during the siege, looking out from walkways and old concession stands with angry, hungry stares and waving signs that said " _New Yorkers_ _Deserve Better Than the Pakis"_ and " _Is This How You Treat Veterans back in Bangalore?"_ , among many other vicious slogans.

From the loudspeakers inside the storied stadium, static-y broadcasts of the exploits of men with names Satya had never heard like Jeter, Judge, Stanton, and Sandman played on a loop, mixed in with the collective voices of the sign wavers singing a mournful blues tune. Though the words didn't fit, the context was transparent:

 **I went down to deep Texas,**

 **Mississippi State,**

 **hoping things would go my way.**

 **For every hard-earned dollar I make,**

 **there stands a white man just to take it away**

"Do you know why they're singing?" Sanjay asked as he leaned over towards Satya.

"Yes." she said. "They believe that they've been wronged. I read in the file that the entire city banded together during the invasion. Every person contributed to the defense, from open fighting in Queens to setting booby traps in a neighbourhood called 'Flatbush' to running messages across the rivers after the bridges were destroyed. Airports, a museum ship, and this park were turned into fortresses, and guerrilla war was waged with whatever they could muster, even refitting a ferry as a gunboat. Despite overwhelming odds, after ten years of fighting, they were victorious."

Sanjay interrupted and finished her expositing. "But when we came and built the new city, they resented the labor being outsourced. They were offered a chance to leave, but it turns out New York's stubborn reputation is well-founded. Protests have been nonstop for nearly eighteen years, with escalations every few months." His words had gradually grown more bitter until he was practically spitting them out.

Satya continued to look at the hateful banners and hear their holder's song:

 **Some might say I talk loud,**

 **see if I care**

 **Unlike them, don't walk away from my fear.**

 **I busted stones, broken bones,**

 **looked the Devil in the eye**

 **I know he's gonna break these chains**

 **The Devil's gonna make me a free man, the Devil's gonna set me free**

 **The Devil's gonna make me a free man, the Devil's gonna set me free.**

"Why not force them out?" she inquired.

Sanjay laughed in the manner of a person who had heard an innocent child say something idealistic. "We tried, but they resisted us as fiercely as they did the Omnics. Eventually, we settled on a truce."

Satya didn't respond, rather she was deep in thought. _He's worked here before_ , she deduced. _He saw the unruliness begin._

The limo picked up speed as it finished circling the block and left Yankee Stadium in its wake. Finally, Satya spoke up. "Is that why you wanted me here?"

His response came in the form of a raised eyebrow and a subtle look off to the right. Now they were in a former neighbourhood, filled with thin, tall houses made from brownstone, much of which was as cracked and decaying as the ballpark. In among the residences, Satya saw harlots ply their trade, hobos wander aimlessly down alleyways, and drug peddlers sell a few minutes of bliss to unrestrained customers. Again, protesters waved vitriol-filled signs and played loud music that was nearly a hundred years old:

 **Got in a little hometown jam**

 **So they put a rifle in my hand**

 **Sent me off to a foreign land**

 **To go and kill the yellow man**

 **Born in the U.S.A.**

 **I was born in the U.S.A.**

Unlike the sports complex, the residents here also shouted their hateful slurs and threw pieces of refuse at the car. Satya instinctively flinched as a rotten egg stained the window and offended her with its awful smell.

She looked across to Sanjay's seat, evidently unnerved. "This is a truce?"

"A price that must be paid, regrettably. We're not there yet, though." he said.

She closed her eyes and tried to recenter herself, but the rebellious rhythm continued to pound as it was left behind.

 **Come back home to the refinery**

 **Hiring man says 'Son if it was up to me'**

 **Went down to see my V.A. man**

 **He said 'Son, don't you understand'**

Finally, the car reached its destination, an elevator standing in Times Square. Satya had read that back in the day, this had been the heart of the city, the place where its allure had been strongest. Now, the screens and lights that had once endlessly barraged people with colour and entertainment were silent, if they weren't completely obliterated in the Crisis. In the background, the great skyscrapers and historic blocks of the old city stood as fading examples of the glory held so long ago. She observed their architecture; the Art Deco style had its charm, but was too old.

This part of the city had the greatest concentration of raucous protesters. The road was cordoned off by barriers and guarded by Vishkar paramiltary riding horses. Satya watched as a young man jumped the barrier and was promptly laid out by a firehose before being arrested and dragged off screaming. The signs and vulgarities here were also ramped up in outrage, with such lines as " _Pump My Gas Apu_ " and " _Go Ahead, Bite the Big Apple. Don't Mind the Maggots_ " plastered across the front of Radio City and hanging from a window of the Chrysler Building.

"How is this any better?" she demanded with a perturbed tone.

Sanjay didn't answer, he only offered to help her out of the car as it stopped in front of the elevator. As she stepped out and stood up, another demonstrator jumped the sawhorses and charged her down before being stopped in his tracks by another, impermeable barrier she had created. This display doubled the crowd's angry shouts and flung more trash and even a Molotov cocktail their way, the latter of which distressed Satya greatly. As they boarded the elevator and began the swift ascent into the clouds, she repeated her question, adding "The entire Lower city is on the verge of the open war you wanted to avert!"

"This isn't close to that." he replied calmly. "If an uprising begins, you will know. I guarantee it."

Satya was unconvinced. "Down there, it's worse than anything that happened in Rio. Why have you let things come to this?"

Sanjay was still cool-headed, though Satya couldn't comprehend for the life of her why. "I didn't. I have worked here before, yes, but not in a position that could change anything."

"Then why take me through this cesspool of disorder and hatred?!"

Sanjay took note of her anger, letting it stew as the elevator continued to climb upwards. He clasped his hands behind his back and stared out through the glass, viewing the Empire State Building's gutted structure as it grew smaller and smaller.

He stayed in that position as he answered, not letting her see his tight-lipped smile. "It is because of how you feel right now." he stated quietly.

Satya was caught off guard. She raised a finger to her temple as she tried to make sense of this reveal. "So, you want me to be angry at them?" she asked, unsure.

Sanjay answered: "Think of this as preparation for your new job. Here, you will have to be cold, merciless, and see things through without question. Seeing the downtrodden for what they are will make it easier." He turned back towards her and raised a hand in front of himself. "Rio is but a smaller piece in a larger game. There, you did not have the power to bring stability, as I was unable to here when I was in your shoes. Now," he said, fiery resolve seeping into his voice and his hand closing into a fist. "you and I, especially you, have a chance to make things different than they were and bring glory untold to Vishkar and their designs."

Satya's face was purposefully unreadable. The last time she had seen him this resolute had been when he had told her the destruction of the favela was necessary, and the unnerving feeling that had gnawed at her that day had been unwelcome since. Though his character was one she didn't like, his words were still desirable. A necessary evil, she thought of it as. Even though Rio had been a debacle, New York now presented an opportunity to correct the mistakes made, to truly serve the greater visions of Vishkar's leaders and to bring order to the degenerates that had projected their violent hate upon her.

At last, she made an expression Sanjay could understand, one that showed she was in agreement. "You are right. For the greater good."

"Thank you." he replied, cold but reassuring.

After its rapid climb, the elevator finally slowed down and came to a halt within one of the immaculate buildings of the Higher city. Satya quickly used the glass as an impromptu mirror to look over herself and make sure she was in ship-shape.

As she straightened out a few loose ends of her hair, Sanjay caught her attention with the clearing of his throat. "Remember, their anger is chaotic. Don't hesitate to make it orderly."

"Of course." she replied.

The doors parted and Satya began to turn to make her way out them. "Your new home is at Three-Seventeen West Avenue, fifty-fourth floor. Make yourself comfortable; Your new overseer will meet with you shortly after you arrive."

Satya committed the address to memory as she walked out into the lobby of the reception building. Behind her, she didn't see that as the doors shut on Sanjay and the lift from the filth below, he produced a small device from his breast pocket and spoke into it. "She has arrived, unsettled from the tour but still resolute. She'll meet you at your apartment shortly."

"Bravo, _mi compinche_. I almost didn't think you could do it. I'll take it from here; You sit back and enjoy the show." a woman's voice on the other end answered, condescension and dangerous ambition tinting her words. "As of now, the ball starts rolling."


	5. Chapter 5: Eden

Looking at the shimmering paradise that she now stepped foot on, Satya knew why for eons, religions that believed in a heaven had depicted it high above the clouds.

Today was far from the first time that faith in the divine had been in her thoughts; In the disgusting little hole of mud and shit she had been born in, every family kept a shrine that was revered at the foot at, hers included. She remembered the devotion they had to the idols and the beings of supposed enlightenment and omnipotence that they represented. Even though she was young and naive to the the ways of the world, she had never been able to grasp the point of their worship. _Why believe in things that can't be seen or felt? Why place hope in things that have no guarantee of paying off? Why spend time praising their supposed greatness when you could spend that time doing things to better yourself and others in the here and now_? She had never been able to make any sense out of it.

As she grew older and her mind and talents progressed under Vishkar's watchful eye, she saw belief in the divine in a new light. Upon looking back at her short youth, faith represented something powerful but serene, a constant in an ever-changing world that could be leaned upon. It was a concept she had come up with herself one day and, believing it a novel idea, decided to pursue it. It most certainly helped that her home country was the birthplace for multiple well-established ideologies.

Her studies were ongoing, seeking out the methods of faith across the earth and their connections to her own beliefs. It didn't take long for her to realize, however, that while religion promised order, its history and roots were built in chaos. Abrahamic ideals best exemplified this, rife with conflict over belief and constant infighting because of differences. Faiths native to her homeland and the rest of eastern Asia made better on their promises and generally coexisted peacefully, but also tended to define themselves and their teachings in ways she found vague and, at times, unrealistic.

Much of her adolescence had been spent grappling with this hypocrisy. She couldn't trust in something that defied her own beliefs, but to disregard subscription to a higher power was to invite chaos into her life. As she grew into adulthood and her mind cleared with experience, she had another revelation: In all the faiths she had observed and studied, creativity, peace, and beauty belonged to the divine, who in turn imbued the mortals with its grace. In turn, it was these same mortals who used their gifts to shape the world around them, who made the world precise and structured. Through this, she came to believe that while humanity shaped the world, it was higher powers that gave life order and that allowed for their vision to be reflected.

As she walked out of the reception lobby into the open, Satya could only think that this city was divinely inspired. The birds-eye view from the plane had given her a first glance, but now up close she saw just how integrated creativity and precision were. Looking up at the city hall, the building was a stunning combination of gentle, elegant curves and exact angles that held everything in place as it towered into the sky. Just as she had surmised, precision was human, creativity was godly.

Across the street, another building with a Wright-inspired outside appearance, though not as tall as the last one, again showed brilliance. As Satya walked down the street towards a nearby rapid transit terminal, every other structure that came into her view took incredible variations on that concept of beauty and precision being so closely combined. As well, in stark contrast to the disgust and violence a mile beneath her feet and nearly five thousand miles south, every street was sparkling, the people walking them were quiet and well-kept, and the air under the biodome smelled fresh and crisp. The only sounds that confronted her were the gentle humming of hover-buses and maglev trams gliding along the street, onto one of which she boarded and was whisked off.

Satya closed her eyes as she took in a long, slow breath through her nose and exhaled it through her mouth. This, this was what she needed in her life, not Sanjay's suspicious undertakings or strange motivations. The city truly was perfection. Nothing else she had ever seen provided such a serene, comfortable, and organized feeling. Forget mere inspiration, Higher New York had been built by gods themselves!

As she stepped off the shuttle onto the block where her apartment was located, the address ran through her mind. _Three-Seventeen West, fifty-fourth floor. Three Seventeen West, fifty-fourth floor_. When she found the building that matched, her eyes were first drawn to the numbers on the outside, then to the building itself, and what she saw was breathtaking.

Before her towered the tallest building in the entire metropolis, and the most ambitious. Unlike the wavy rectangles that surrounded it, this apartment, which Satya knew as the famous Vishkar Life Complex, stood triangular. Not pyramid-shaped, but triangular, thin and wide and without a traditional base, all of which were traits only possible through masterful hard-light construction. Glass walls gave the structure a glisten like polished silver, which on especially sunny days, Satya had read, also gave the building a spectacular nickname: Rainbow Tower.

Her jaw was agape and her head tilted back as she walked in through the doorway. _The magnum opus of Vishkar, without a doubt,_ she thought. As she entered the lobby, nearly running into the door-Omnic before she snapped out of her tourist-esque fawning, the realization that she was going to be taking up residence in such a place became clear, sending her into an even greater, but more refined, state of awe.

The lobby, coloured a pristine white with the Vishkar logo rampant on the ceiling, was as quiet, focused, and efficient as everything else she had seen on this Eden in the clouds. Not wanting to stain the perfection, Satya quickly straightened her posture and smoothed out any wrinkles or folds she could find on her suit. She strolled through the reception area, prim and proper, eyes locked forward on the Omnic behind the desk that stood between a pair of elevators.

As she came to a halt, she spoke up to the Omnic, who itself was focused on sorting through a pile of datalogs and sorting them in various methods.

"Good day sir. I am Satya Vaswani, the new tenant for the fifty-fourth floor."

The Omnic, still sorting the datalogs with one hand, concurrently dedicated the other to typing into a computer screen. "Ah, here you are," he said after a few seconds of searching. "We were under the impression that you had already arrived, but it seems we were mistaken. I hope you can forgive us; No one is perfect, after all."

Satya held back a puzzled expression. _How could you have made such an error_ , she wondered. _Also, your idea of perfection is skewed. It is only possible for those who possess the vision and the will, of which you obviously have neither._

"Of course. It can happen to anyone." she replied straight-faced.

"Thank you for understanding. The mistake is corrected now. I just need you to sign on the dotted line and look into this retinal scanner." As he said this, he slid a holo-document over to her side of the desk and pressed a button that raised a small, spherical object out of its hiding spot.

Satya promptly summoned a pen out of thin air and guided it effortlessly across the line, her flawless penmanship being put to good use. As the pen vanished once she was done with it, she leaned forward and stared directly into the sphere, which affirmed her identity with a quick chirp before retreating into the desk. Behind the Omnic, an elevator door opened, beckoning her to enter and be guided to her future.

"I hope that you enjoy your stay." the receptionist said warmly.

Satya initially didn't reply, instead making straight for the elevator before she realized that she had been terribly rude. She spun around on one heel and offered her thanks before entering the elevator. As the lift made its climb towards the top of the triangular tower, she let excitement get the better of her for a brief moment, knowing no one could see her. She could feel her heart pounding and her organic hand shake rapidly as she savoured the moment. _This is it. This is really it. The cream has finally risen to the top, and from there will come order, brought upon the troubled and misguided by the worthy_.

As the elevator slowed down, so did her thoughts. She realized that her hand was shaking; A tic she had read was a byproduct of the basis of her remarkable talents, but she resented because no matter what she had done to suppress it, it had always come back. A single piece of chaos from within, pin-pricking her whenever she least expected it.

From her other hand, a near-invisible beam was projected around the errant one, holding it in stasis until she was sure she could keep it under control. By the time the elevator had come to a halt and the doors slid open, she had again taken her professional stance, stepping onto the tiled floor of the hallway with form befitting her status.

The doors led to a single, narrow hallway, with nothing on either side except more pristine white walls. Walking down it made an echoed sound with each step, almost tricking the mind into believing the walk was longer and more foreboding than what Satya knew it was. As she neared the door, she produced a key card from another hard-light conjuration, tapping it against the doorknob and unlocking her new quarters.

The residence was larger than she was used to. Rio had accommodated her with a full suite, which she had come to think of as a little compact, but practical-minded. The penthouse she now stood in was over three times the size of that last one, and she regarded it with slight apprehension, but also the same awe as before. Again, the walls were plain, perfect white like a sheet of canvas, and glass walls stretching to the ceiling brought in light in long, beautiful beams like those coming through the windows of a church. Strolling through the landing and into the common room, she regarded the open space, empty of furniture and decorations, closely. _A little larger than anticipated,_ she thought, _But it will work marvelously._

She leaned against the wall at the edge of the landing and took off her shoes, allowing her bare feet the full feeling of the floor. She closed her eyes, visualizing the center of the space she had just seen. Slowly and methodically, she stepped towards the point she had in her head. Her arms stretched out to her sides, feeling the divider that separated the common room from the kitchen. She listened to the muffled tap that her feet made with each movement. Her prosthetic arm began to glow with iridescent blue light, a ball forming in her palm.

Even though she couldn't see it, Satya knew exactly when she had reached her destination, and when she had she froze as though moving even a fraction of an inch more would ruin absolutely everything. Planting herself in place, she took a perfectly straight posture and visualized her environment behind her eyelids. It all became vivid in her mind; The canvas-white walls, the common room, the kitchen, the dining room, the study, the upstairs, the bedroom, it all came together in a flawless vision, and now she could execute it.

She clasped her hands together, feeling the glowing ball of light from her palm, and slowly pulled them apart. The orb was stretched and weaved like string in cat's cradle until it had formed an exact scale replica of the entire penthouse. She then slid her fingers across the model until she reached the spot where she stood and pressed down on it.

"Order through peace, peace through calm, calm through order." she whispered.

The chain reaction that began was amazing to behold; Every inch of the apartment was bathed in blue light, and exact copies of the furniture, decorations, even the colour of the ceiling that Satya had grown accustomed to in Rio, filled in the open space like broad, multi-toned brush strokes. In the middle of it all, she guided each piece of light as it took form and mass, her movements a combination of conductor-like rigidity and the graceful dances she had learned since childhood.

As the swirling change died down and the glow faded away, Satya opened her eyes and observed her work. Aside from the obvious larger space that made the home seem cavernous, even with its trappings, there was not a single aesthetic that looked any different from her last home.

A proud expression crept across Satya's face; _Perfect_ _and ordered, just the way it should be_. Her enjoyment of her work was interrupted, though, by an exhausted feeling that she knew had to be jet lag, and an annoying itch along her scalp. She yawned into one hand and ran the other through her hair, which had a greasy attribute due to her hasty departure that morning.

 _Sanjay didn't say precisely when the handler would contact me_ , _just shortly after I arrive,_ she thought. She reached into her back pocket and glanced at the time on her phone: She had been here for nearly twenty minutes, when Vishkar protocol stated both personnel in a rendezvous should be at the location no more than ten minutes between each other. _Perhaps, better late than never?_ _Yes, I think I can make use of this time_.

Within a few minutes she had located where the tea kettle and the green Darjeeling were located in the kitchen, and had a pot boiling while she made her way upstairs to take a quick bird-bath. By the time the telltale whistle screamed its readiness, Satya was savouring the fresh, clean feeling as she changed into a casual blouse and sweatpants with a sari draped over and did her hair up in a towel to dry. When she heard the kettle, she rushed to finish her preparations only to hear the screech stop abruptly. This silence rendered her monolithic-ally still as she listened for any movement downstairs, like a mouse listening for the scratch of a cat's claws outside their hole. After a tense minute that felt many times longer and produced nothing, she came to a conclusion that made sense.

 _Now I remember. I set the timer on the stove to shut off the heat once it reached the right temperature._ Sighing with relief, she resumed her normal pace.

When she reached the kitchen, everything was where it should have been, reassuring her notions. Still, she couldn't help but feel she was being watched, as though there was something slightly off.

After she had gone downstairs, poured herself a cup, and entered the common room, she saw the reason for that uneasiness sitting on the sofa, wearing a lavender jacket and with her hair on one side of her head shaved.

"I love what you've done with the place, _mi amiga._ "


	6. Chapter 6: Allow Me to Introduce Myself

Satya screamed loud enough to almost shatter the windows and jumped back over a foot, sending her tea flying across the room and the cup crashing to the ground in a thousand pieces. The intruder, meanwhile, was unphased, raising her hands in front of her calmly.

" _Relájate_ , there's nothing to be worried about. Just let me give a little explanation and it'l-"

The trespasser's words were cut off as Satya created her photon projector faster than the eye could blink and turned it on the interloper. Multiple thin beams of blue light shot out from the center and the focusing arms, forming a thin, impenetrable barrier around its target and suspending her in the air, completely immobilized.

Satya was both furious and terrified. "Who are you? How did you get in here? Why did you break into my house?!"

The home invader, though trapped in a cocoon by a very ticked-off person with a potentially lethal weapon, remained calm, even flippant. "Hey, hey, calm down, alright? I'll answer you, but you've got to actually let me get words out of my mouth first. _¿Entiendes?_ " She rolled her eyes when she realized that Satya didn't understand Spanish. "Understand?"

Satya was utterly silent for several minutes, only staring directly ahead with a scowl that her prisoner could see right through. Finally, she answered. "If I think you're going to try anything for even an instant, you will die."

"Pretty strong words. You sure you can back it up?"

"Orders from my boss. Show no mercy to degenerates."

The intruder laughed, catching Satya off guard. "Glad to hear. Did Sanjay tell you that?"

This caught Satya even further off guard. How did this person, whomever she was, know anything about Sanjay? What else did they know on top of that? She couldn't risk anything. "Alright then," she hissed. "Talk."

"Ah sure, what the hell? Not like I'm going anywhere." the unknown interloper said with slight glib. Before she went any further, she looked around at her trappings. "I don't suppose you could put me down, _si_?

Satya's lack of an answer was taken as a no, so the captive continued. "My name is Sombra. To put it simply, I'm your new handler."

Satya took a moment to register Sombra's statement, regarding her suspiciously. Eventually, she slowly began to put Sombra down. "You don't look like Vishkar. Your attire is far from expected protocol; The cyan and lavender are far from standard issue colouration and your hair is improperly done." she stated bluntly.

Sombra chuckled with amusement as her feet touched down on the floor. "I like you already. But, in answer to your question, I'm not Vishkar." As the beams that had snared her dissipated, she walked slowly and confidently towards her former captor. "I represent an outside organization with a large controlling interest, and-" She paused when she noticed that Satya wasn't paying attention anymore, rather she was focused on cleaning up the tea that had puddled on the floor and the shattered cup fragments.

Sombra leaned over, folding her arms behind her back, and watched for a few seconds as Satya's constructs wiped away the disorder. From her hand, long purple tendrils snaked into Satya's view and projected a pixellated sugar skull image, distracting her from finishing the task.

"So, like I was saying," Sombra restated, "I represent outside parties that have a controlling interest in Vishkar. They wanted someone who could do their work, and your name was at the top of the list."

Satya's expression was a combination of honoured and confused. "That doesn't make sense; Vishkar isn't publicly traded. Outside parties have no say in affairs."

Sombra snickered snidely as she placed her hand on her new friend's shoulder, but immediately reeled it back in when it was flicked by a hard-light construct and she was given a perturbed look. "You know, I almost had my doubts about you when you tried to kill me and sound all scary, but this makes up for it and then some. You and I, I think, are going to be pretty good friends." Satya, meanwhile, was busy putting on a smile that hid a growing feeling of discordance.

Recognizing it almost immediately, Sombra exhaled, smiled, and gave a permissive gesture. Merely seconds later, the remains of the tea and its broken cup on the floor had been swept away and disposed of.

"Mind if I ask you a question, _amiga_?"

Satya swiveled around at the sound of Spanish, to which her handler responded "As a friend?" She deliberated in her mind whether to let it slide or not, but eventually allowed her.

With an offering motion, Sombra guided her companion towards the sofa. "Why does it happen? I mean, why back there did you want to clean up a little thing like that so badly?"

It was most certainly an unorthodox question. "Wouldn't you? Tea stains, and the china could cut your foot if you step on a shard."

"Sure, but most people would have left it be until they could fit it into the conversation. You, on the other hand, were a woman possessed."

"It's disorderly, and when order is not swift and unyielding, chaos will flourish."

Sombra clasped her hands in front of herself. "I assume you take no exceptions?" she inquired, already assuming the answer.

"Of course not. Every part of life can be organized and put to routine. Why wouldn't you want the comfort and security that comes with it?"

Her guess proven correct, Sombra moved onto the next item on her mind. "Seems to me like this is something that goes deep." she prodded. "I'd be willing to bet that there's quite the story behind it."

Satya sat back in her spot, looking off into the middle distance. "That's a rather personal question." she said hesitantly.

"Please, it's out of curiosity, I swear. C _ruce mi corazón,_ cross my heart."

Seeing that her friend was still uncertain, she shuffled up next to her. "Hey, I'll make you a deal." she whispered. "If you tell me the truth, I promise you on my life that I'll always do the same for you. Sanjay didn't often extend that courtesy, did he?"

Satya's eyes flicked over to the woman sitting on her sofa, who'd broken into her apartment, then spoken of the two of them as friends, and was now asking her to divulge why she needed order in her life, the icing on the cake of the strangest day she'd ever experienced. Still, the woman was her superior in this case, and an indulgence of this question wouldn't be too unorthodox. As well, she did have a point; Sanjay had often left out details or played her for larger gains, the favela being a lingering example. Perhaps, Satya thought, this woman deserved a chance to prove herself different.

She breathed in deeply through her nose and hung her head low. When she spoke, she spoke softly and tentatively. "When I was a young girl, life was... eventful. Every day brought something new, something unexpected into what was already a churning cesspool of bedlam."

Sombra raised an eyebrow and leaned in closer. "You're referring to not just the day to day."

Satya's head hung even lower. She raised the arm closest to her acquaintance and used it to try to shield her growing pain. "I was poor, even by the standards of Hyderabad. Baba was a ghost and sickness took its toll on Mama, so my brothers and sisters and I were on our own. For them, it was hard, but they took to it resourcefully, sometimes in ways that are... best left unsaid. While they roved, I searched for somewhere, just where I could be away from the crowds and the smells and the noises, where it could all make sense."

"Sensory overload."

"Yes. Then came the worst day of my life."

Sombra leaned in closer, seeing that her friend was tearing up, most certainly a good sign.

"Every year, all of India celebrates the coming of spring, the forgiving of transgressions, and the triumph of good over evil with a festival of colour. Holi, they call it. I was unfortunate enough to experience the first one celebrated since the Crisis had ended."

Sombra's eyes widened and she leaned in even closer, to where she could see the glistening streaks on her face where tears had run before dropping onto the sari.

Satya continued: "I had heard of the festivities before, but I could never have anticipated the nightmare that awaited me. The streets were flooded with people, every which way I looked. No matter how fast I ran or how small the hole I crawled into to escape, there were people crowded into it. I was surrounded, trapped in a stampede. Next came the noise. Musicians played raucous music in the streets, and loudspeakers projected it across the city at full volume. My head pounded with every beat and and I collapsed against a wall in agony, feeling as though my ears were about to explode. Finally came the colours. Bright hues, powdered or liquid, thrown by the revelers at each other, splattering over wide berths and all within them. It coated my skin, made my hair heavy and thick, and stung my eyes like a swarm of bees."

She paused to wipe her face clean of tears and try to regain some level of composure. Her voice was now wavering, a sad vibrato as she fought back the pain of memory. "The noise, the colour, the people; It all blurred together into something truly terrifying. I don't know how long I spent curled up in the corner of that wretched little shack. Hours, days maybe, all the while the sound and feeling and smell and touch and taste assaulting me without end. I prayed to be able to drift off to sleep, to never have to feel or see anything so horrible, so chaotic again, but it never came. The suffering, the disorder, it never ended."

She placed her hands on her face as the memory overcame her and broke down into sobbing. "How can anyone live like that?!" she cried. "How can people want anything so awful?!"

Sombra sat next to her, motionless and her expression of wide-eyed amazement unchanged. _Wow. Just,_ Dios mio. _This is going to be even better than I'd hoped! Sombra you crazy lady, you never cease to impress yourself._

"Shh, it's OK, it's okay. You're safe here. Nothing's going to hurt you." she said compassionately. She attempted to place a hand on Satya's lap, but retracted it when she remembered what happened last time.

After a short while, Satya had managed to piece herself back together, Sombra spoke to her again. "You're a braver woman than I am."

Satya sniffed in and sat up straight. "Thank you."

"I knew you were unique when I was assigned to you, but I would never have guessed just how far that went. You'll do a great job."

"Thank you." Satya repeated as she sniffed in again and cleaned off the last of her tears.

It was now Sombra's turn to bow her head. "When I was young, I grew up like you did. No home, no family, nothing. I did what I had to do, and it took me to where I am today. If it means anything to you-"

"Yes," she interrupted. "It does. It... actually helps."

" _Maravillosa_." Sombra said as her hand slid along the top of the sofa behind her new friend. "I'm glad we had this little chat. Feels good, doesn't it, knowing you've got a friend you can talk to?"

Satya's head rotated slowly, her expression not entirely decided on the usage of 'friend' just yet.

"Alright, we'll work on it." She raised herself off the sofa and walked to the divider where Satya had stood earlier. "I'd better be going; Things to do, higher-ups to please, you know." She raised a hand and summoned a hologram containing several numbers. "If you ever need to reach me or you want to talk again, here's my card."

The card vanished after she'd kept it up long enough for Satya to commit it to her vivid memory. "I'll send you your first mission in a couple days' time." Sombra said. "Until then, get comfy, enjoy your new digs. Once we start up, you'll be plenty busy." With that, she was enveloped by a purple light and de-pixellated out of existence, leaving Satya on the sofa pondering her associate's offers of friendship and sincerity and wondering just what her first assignments would have in store.

 _At least she's better than Sanjay was, though she seems to know how to get to the inner layers of people._

She considered this for some time before ultimately concluding to work for the best.

 _One step closer to a better_ _world_ , she decided. _Order through peace, peace through calm, calm through order._


	7. Chapter 7: First Assignment

If the day she had moved to Higher New York had been hectic, then this one was completely insane.

True to her word, Satya had been graced with a couple days time to get settled into her accommodations. It had been time well spent; She organized all the cutlery and dishware into the same cupboards they'd been in in her Rio kitchen, filled in the missing pieces of the sets, memorized the locations of every grocery store within a thirty minute drive, met and conversed with all the Vishkar executives on the business levels of the Life Complex, and cleared a space in both the upstairs office and the common room for meditation and dancing which she promptly put to good use. And that was just in the first half of Day One!

When she woke up on the day after her respite, she was pouring her cup of tea and making her usual rice cakes when it dawned on her what day it was. She'd known, but it hadn't completely sunk in until now. With how busy she'd kept herself, time had flown by, and now she was due to receive her first assignment.

It had been a little over ten years since she had last experienced the feeling she had at that moment, the equal parts anticipation and jitters that let a person know that they were heading off into unknown territory. Her first mission had been short and sweet; Infiltrating a rival company's corner office, fooling the computer's security measures, and transferring their entire financial holdings to Vishkar-held accounts. Even as an eighteen year old unsure of how things went in the world and needing clarification on every little detail, it was well below her capabilities. Sanjay had given her that mission, and she wondered what his successor had in mind.

Her reflection and her breakfast was interrupted by a chirping on her phone. When she picked it up off the counter, where the display projected a hologram of her new orders.

 **Good morning Ms. Vaswani, (Nah, just kidding)**

 ** _Hola mi amiga_** **,**

 **Happy to see you enjoyed your time off, now let's get down to the good stuff. I'll start you off easy; There's a maximum-security prison just south of Paris, France that's holding two recently-hired assets. Obviously, they can't just sit in there forever, and that's where you come in. You're going to slip in and get them out before anyone notices.**

 **I've sent you a profile of the facility and a list of things to pick up before you send them on their way. Think of it like really dangerous grocery shopping.**

 **I'll meet you on the point marked in the file. I'll take it from there. Go bring the house down.**

 **Your friend,**

 **Sombra.**

 **P.S. This may not be what you're expecting. Afterwards, I'll explain everything.**

A jailbreak. _Most certainly an easy undertaking to test me_ , she thought. _Amusing how they think they need to do that._

Satya scoffed derisively as she scrolled through the file, believing it would be simply too easy for someone of her caliber and skillset. The first parts of what she read seemed to confirm that. The diorama of the prison showed it as an immense complex, laid out in a polygonal shape with the main cell blocks at each edge, armed like a fortress, monitored at nearly every angle, and manned by highly-trained personnel that adhered to a strict schedule. A further analysis showed that the pair was located in the eastern wing, only a few hundred feet away from the outermost wall and a roadway that ran past it.

 _Not bad. Easily beaten, but not bad_.

The final thing she did before switching off the hologram and preparing her game plan was look over the items that she had to pick up, presumably from the contraband room in the centre of the facility. She skimmed over the list, growing rather perplexed by the nature of the items: A well-worn motorcycle and sidecar, steel bear traps, large piles of scrap metal, canisters of a strange gaseous solution, enough bombs and other explosives to reduce a half-dozen city blocks to ash, makeshift grenade launchers and shotguns, and a giant steel hook on a chain. A strange arsenal, extremely crude in its design yet with the potential for incredible destruction.

Satya would have called her handler for more information, but the plan she had in mind for extracting the prisoners relied on precise timing. Not wasting a moment, she made haste to the common room and placed herself in the center of her open space. She stretched her arms outward and closed her eyes, looking deep within for the clarity she desired. She brought her hands together in a praying position, open palms and straight fingers coming together, before drawing them apart and outstretching her arms to either side. At the same time, she brought her right foot back, ready to launch her off into her dance.

When she did, it was spectacular: Every motion carefully planned out and executed fluidly, a long line of glowing blue light twirling around her and illuminating the room like a swarm of fireflies. The shining particles spiraled upwards and out with each elegant motion, taking several forms. The first, the spiral surrounding the dancer in the middle of the wonder, formed into Satya's field attire, forming over and replacing the night wear she had had on previously. In front of her, the rest of the trail of light took form into a Vishkar teleporter, a flower head-shaped device that projected a gateway that could transcend all distances.

Feeling balanced and the path to freedom opened, Satya walked slowly towards her destination, breathing slowly and mentally preparing herself for anything. With a single step, she was through the portal and within the tight confines of the cell that the pair were supposed to be in. The first thing that confronted her was a powerful odor of fire and gunpowder that nearly caused her to gag. A quick look through the nigh-unbreakable glass and metal combination that was in place of the traditional bars confirmed she was between guard shifts, perfectly on schedule, and a wave of her hand obscured any cameras that happened to be pointing her way.

Despite everything being perfectly planned, however, there were two critical things missing. Though the cell was barely ten feet long by ten wide and offered no hiding spots, the inmates were nowhere to be found. Satya's mind raced through the file she had memorized; Had she missed something? If so, how was that possible?

Before she could go over any more possibilities, her attention was attracted upward by a low-pitched roar. Her head jerked in the direction of the ceiling and her upper body twisted around to see a massive man wearing a pig-faced gas mask and a with a tattoo of a hog and a motorcycle engine emblazoned on his belly careening down onto her. She had only just enough time to sidestep the beast before it impacted the floor with a hard thud. As her photon projector materialized in her hand, she felt the pointy end of what she assumed was a shiv pressed up against her back.

Her attacker laughed insanely. "Ooh ooh, look what I found Roady! Chicks comin' outta holes in the wall." Satya restrained a groan as he wrenched on her hair with his other hand. "Whatcha think?" he asked to his compatriot, who was picking himself off the floor. "We kill her now or keep her 'round 'til we bust outta here, if you know what I mean?"

Enraged and confused, but not wanting to show it, Satya formed a collar around the prisoner entertaining murder and things even more unseemly and hoisted him into the air in front of her, watching his skinny frame and peg-leg writhe and squirm and hearing him howl in protest and fear for his pathetic life. Before the hog could charge her down, a concussive ball of energy from her photon projector sent him reeling backwards into the wall.

"Say anything like that again, and you won't be leaving at all." she said with fierce derision before releasing the collared assailant and seeing him sputter as he dropped to one knee.

"Oooh, feisty little sheila, eh? This is gonna be real-whoawhoawhoawhoa!" The expression on his rat-like face turned from wicked glee to uncertain surprise faster than the eye could blink. "Whaddaya mean 'won't be leaving'? Ol' Pig-Face and me have got a foolproof plan to bust outta this box and blow this dump sky high!" he cackled maniacally.

The rat was then promptly lifted by the scruff of his neck up onto his feet by the hog, who stared at him blankly through the goggles of his mask.

"OK OK fine, maybe we don't have 'all' of a foolproof plan per se, but it's gonna be _genius_ once we put it together! They don't call me 'Mister Inconspicuous' for nothin'!" The skinny madman laughed insanely before swiveling on his peg-leg towards his partner in crime and pointing a metal hand in his face. "DON'T SAY IT!"

The immense creature tilted his head to one side.

"Don't play stupid with me, ya oversized sheep-shagging wombat! After we got up shit's creek in the palace, you don't think I still got that touch for genius plans; Well guess what bucko?!"

Satya continued to watch with increasing incredulity as the fire-singed maniac yelled nonsense at his partner in crime. Never before had she seen anyone so unfocused and so chaotic. Not even the street ruffian that had instigated Rio's revolts had been this disorderly. _Why on Earth would Sombra want these menaces free? The world is better off with them rotting in here._

Time, however, was running out, and the increasing critical nature of the situation meant that she couldn't afford to waste any more time on their drivel. With the temporary projection of a hard-light barrier between the two, she was able to grab their attention.

"Sombra sent me to break you out. We must hurry before someone comes past here." she told them assertively.

The rat racked his unhinged brain when he heard the name. "Sombra? Oi Roadhog, you remember that name? It's on the tip a' my tongue... who the hell was that aga-Oh rooooooight, the taco-muncher who promised us that huge wad o' cash!"

The one called Roadhog stared directly at Satya as she lowered the barrier. "Where's the money?" he bellowed.

Even though she knew she could beat the monster if he made a move against her, his gargantuan frame and low-pitched, wheezy breathing struck an intimidating chord. She planted one foot behind the other and lowered her projector while keeping her artificial arm at her side, palm facing outward as so to be able to react quickly.

"I don't have it with me." she said plainly.

The rat snickered at this revelation and shot a wild-eyed look at her. "Well that's just a right kick in the gonads you just said!" He crossed his arms and pouted. "We ain't goin' nowhere until we get our payday!"

Satya sighed before resuming her persona; She had just about run out of patience for those two. "We're almost out of time before the next guard shift does their rounds. Sombra said she'd meet you at a rendezvous point and settle what's left to settle; I assume that will include your money. I'm to take you there if you so choose. If not, then you can languish in this place; It makes no difference."

The rat's pouting face was unchanged for a second before something finally sparked in his head and caused him to laugh wildly. "Well, that's good enough for me! You thinkin' what I'm thinkin', ya big lug?"

Roadhog only shot him another stare in response.

"NO I'm not thinkin' of Vegemite waffles, though I could really go for one right now, with just a pinch of sugar and a little-" His concentration was brought back to the matter at hand by a slap to the face from his pig-like accomplice. "Right, time for _OPERATION: THE HALF OF MY GENIUS ESCAPE PLAN I WAS ABLE TO THINK OF!_ Otherwise known as _LET'S BLOW THE ROOF OFF THIS POPSICLE STAND!_ " he shouted before cackling once again.

Almost immediately, the duo reached under their cell bunks and produced lookalikes made with bedsheets, pillows, toilet paper, and an extremely large amount of dynamite and plastic explosives. Satya, already unsettled by their rampant chaos and feeling more on edge as her schedule was stretched more and more thinly, was further bewildered by the sight. The question of where they had managed to acquire and hide the bombs crossed her mind, but reasoned that it was likely for the best that she didn't know.

"OK, roight!" the rat said as he set a pair of mannequin arms on his decoy to flip off anyone who saw them. "Now we just need to grab our goodies and then it's goodbye prison and g'day payday!"

"I'll take care of that, now let's go." Satya replied.

The hog looked up from where his own dummy was placed and stared at Satya. She couldn't see through the black frames of his goggles and the full mask kept any other expressions hidden as well, but she had an unsettling idea about just what he was thinking. Whatever she assumed he was thinking, she didn't get to find out as he turned back towards his bunk and grabbed a small plush toy that Satya thought looked like some kind of turnip with an anime face on it.

His accomplice, however, wasn't so focused. "Oi, I've had just about enough a' you! How do we know you didn't just come in here to screw around with us? Sure, you could be tryin' to kill us too, but that wouldn't be quite as fun!" He cozied up next to her in a highly disturbing way and gave her a sleazy grin. "Y'see, we're kinda popular guys; Roady back there tells the funniest bloody jokes. Hell, it's hard to get him ta shut up half the time!"

Fighting back the urge to not completely lose it, she raised her projector and held it directly in front of the rat's pointy nose. "First, there is no logical reason why anyone would want to do what you described in here. Second, if I had wanted to kill you, you would be dead by now."

The rat hunched over and smiled meekly. "Ok, ok, t-take it easy. I kid, I was kidding, I'm a kidder. Y-you got yer reasons and they're great, and they also mean you're not gonna use that thing on my face? Please?"

Slowly, she lowered her weapon. "Now, let's. Get. Going." she seethed. She waved her hand, spinning the flower petals of the teleporter, which in turn caused the rift to slightly distort before changing back to normal.

The pig-faced one was the first through the portal, while the insufferably annoying one made one last preparation. With the press of a button on his decoy's chest, a the sound of a lightning-fast electric guitar, thunderous rhythm, and a screeching singer could be heard playing at a dangerously high volume through an unseen speaker. Satya cringed slightly and covered her ears to try to dampen the sound.

"Just a little goodbye present, that's all." he explained through murderous giggles before being picked up by Satya's projector and thrown through the teleporter. Just before she herself followed them out, she could hear guards shouting and running for their location.

 _That was far too close_.

As she stepped onto the grassy area on the other side of the road and changed the portal once again, she saw the now-liberated rat and hog waiting for her in eager anticipation.

She struggled to find the right words. "Is there a reason why you look so...?"

"Scary? Excited? Sexy as all hell? Oh, I am SO glad you asked!" the rat giggled. From behind him, he produced a detonator and when he primed the switch on the top, the music from earlier was now playing through the prison's external speakers.

 **You've been:**

With the flip of the switch, the entire wing where they had just been was reduced to little more than smoke and rubble in a massive blast.

 **Thunderstruck!**


	8. Chapter 8: Out Of Your Comfort Zone

While the jailbirds danced wildly to the music, Satya stared at the smouldering pile of concrete and metal in horror. It was a sight almost identical to the primary reason she had been so eager to get away from Rio in the first place. Unlike last time, however, she had seen it all coming; the clues were evident from the start and she had done nothing to stop them. Internally, she cursed herself for her foolishness.

Looking back at the men responsible for the destruction, the rat was headbanging to the beat and making the 'rock on' sign while the hog was doing the cabbage patch. Their revelry in chaos, she thought, was sickening, and the fact that they were now free infuriated her. Her artificial hand glowed blue as she closed it into a fist and her breathing grew heavy as the thoughts of such unbridled destruction intensified her frustration.

Before the screaming in her head could be made external and she could act rashly, Sombra literally appeared out of nowhere, startling her to the point where she jumped back nearly a foot. She laboured to still her racing heart as her handler strutted towards the convicts.

"Nice choice of music, Junkrat." she said playfully.

Junkrat froze in place and snapped out of his jam session. He looked up at Sombra, a triumphant, toothy grin spreading. "He-hey, well look who showed up late to the party. Ay, pig-face! The money's here for real this time!"

Sombra chuckled. "And here I thought the half up front would have been good for a little while. But then again," she said, raising the briefcase she had in one hand and opening it to reveal it was filled to the brim with gold bars. "I wouldn't have you crazy _hijos de puta_ any other way."

Junkrat and Roadhog both both crowded around the case, ogling at its contents and giggling at their fortune. When the former reached in to snatch his share of the prize, Sombra swatted his hand away.

"Ah ah ah," she said in a sing-song voice as her lips grew into a thin smile and her eyes twinkled. "Quid pro quo, _mi amigo_."

Though she stood only ten feet behind them, Satya couldn't hear whatever it was the three of them were discussing. Looking closely, she could see a hologram that Sombra was referring to and the animated responses of the explosives-crazed madmen, but without words to put context to them they had no meaning, leaving her mind to speculate the rest. _What reasons would she have to deal with such detestable beings? Why would she even be going anywhere near such chaos to begin with, let alone speaking with it?_ She wanted dearly to gain these answers, but to eavesdrop on a superior would be immeasurably unprofessional, on top of being an offense Vishkar, and Sanjay in particular, had punished severely.

At last, the talk ended with the Junkers snatching the briefcase out of Sombra's grasp as she turned towards Satya. "Our guests are going to be leaving. They'll need to take a few things with them."

Satya almost missed the cue that was meant, but caught on before her handler had to repeat herself. Upon opening another rift, this one horizontal rather than vertical, a massive stockpile of bombs, bear-traps, gas canisters, mines, shotguns, scrap metal, grenade launchers, a gigantic hook on a chain, and the pieces of the motorcycle that had been trashed at Versailles dropped onto the grass. At the same time, light took shape and reassembled the fragments of the machine until it was in its previous, battered state.

Laughing maniacally and shaking with excitement, Junkrat leaped into his sidecar, grabbing his effects as his partner compiled his own and mounted the bike.

"This is gonna be one bloody awesome ride, eh big boy? What's say first thing we do is head back to London? I want me back that Holy Hand Grenade they got!"

"I miss that crown." the pig grunted in response.

"Things are gonna get crazy, explode-y, and, uh..., _more explode-y_! Why? 'Cause Junkrat and Roadhog are back in the saddle again and ready to kick more Aussie arse than ever, mothafu-WHOOOOA!" His manic tirade was interrupted as the bike took off, screeching onto the road and roaring off into the distance as the two women watched.

Sombra walked up beside Satya and regarded her closely. The latter seemed as though to feel it happening and turned her head slowly in her direction. "You know, I never actually imagined what you looked like in your field garb." the former remarked. "The headdress and the jewel are nice touches and your hair looks _muy sexy_ let down, but thigh-high boots and open legs?"

This wasn't anything new to Satya; Vishkar operatives were allowed to customize their uniforms within certain parameters, and hers had been one of the more unorthodox designs. Still, her results had proven all criticisms wrong. "It's practical, if that's what you are wondering." she said with a hint of boastfulness.

Sombra smirked. "Looks like something you wear to go dancing."

"That's the point. I learned how to dance as a young girl, and it gave me an advantage in my field. Therefore, your skepticism was unjustified."

"Skepticism? _Nada_. Curiosity is more like it, though I think that's a concept you're a little less familiar with."

"Curiosity is something Vishkar doesn't approve of. You do what you are told and do not ask questions."

Sombra raised an eyebrow and slid up closer to her friend. "Just because it's disapproved doesn't stop it from swimming around in there." she remarked, pointing a purple finger at Satya's head. "For instance, I'm sure you're curious as to why I sent you to break out a couple of guys who are likely the the most disgusting human beings you've ever met."

Satya kept her face straight, but her eyes swiveled to her left and her lips tightened together in discomfort as her handler moved closer until their hair was brushing together and their shoulders touched.

"It's the same reason why we're so close together right now." Sombra continued, correctly taking her friend's subtle expressions as a 'yes'. "It's something that's out of your comfort zone. And I know you're thinking, 'You shouldn't leave your comfort zone. It's exactly what the name implies.' Well, I wish it weren't so, but we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto."

"I think in this context, shouldn't you be referring your quote to Dorothy?" Satya interjected.

This prompted a long laugh out of the woman the Vishkar operative was correcting. "Jokes aside," she said after recomposing herself. "You freed those two because I owed them that case of gold they made off with. Payment for a job they were... subcontracted for. You probably remember it from the news not too long ago."

Satya wondered briefly as to just what she was talking about until she remembered; The massacre at Versailles. She remembered how uneasily she had sat when she saw the footage of the carnage inside the palace. Now, it was the same feeling she was getting from having let loose the ones deemed responsible for such disorder.

"They killed people." she whispered, her tone a mixture of fear and regret. "Good people, and they will kill again."

Sombra spun on her heel to face her friend and brought one arm behind her back while another played with her hair. _And so it begins_ , she thought.

"It's true _amiga_ ," she stated sympathetically, "but things like this happen, and I have about as much say in my organization as you do in this matter. Do I want it to be different? Of course, I'm not blindly loyal."

"Then why not say something, or take some sort of action? A position outside of authority doesn't mean you're powerless to change things."

Satya's acquaintance clutched her arm with one hand while her face reflected the same unsettled feeling. It was quickly wiped away, however, and replaced with a more jovial expression.

"Don't worry, I'll tell you. Later. Right now the moods getting a little dour. _¿Está de acuerdo?_ Do you agree?"

Satya looked over her shoulder with a frown. She closed her eyes, which had suddenly grown heavy with exhaustion as the adrenaline rush from her hatred of the Junkers wore off, and held them as such as she turned the rest of herself to face her handler. Slowly, she opened her eyes again. "I guess you could say that." she answered.

Sombra continued: "You said you like dancing, right? I know this great little place where we can go and take our minds off everything. It's a little out of your comfort zone, but that'll be good for you I think. Who knows? Maybe you'll enjoy it."

Satya regarded her with uncertainty. "I don't know. It's been a long and, if I may speak frankly-"

"Always."

"-A more eventful day than I was expecting. I'm not sure a social excursion is the best way to follow this up. Perhaps something else, another job maybe? I just need to take my mind off of this."

Sombra smiled eagerly. "I get that entirely; You don't want to feel overwhelmed, especially when you're doing something a little unorthodox. No need to fret, I'll give you a day to cool off before I send you the location. Until then..." She gave a faux military salute before turning her back towards Satya and fading into a lavender-tinted transparency as she walked away.

Satya followed suit by turning back towards her teleporter and utilizing it to arrive back at her penthouse, where she trudged into her bedroom resolving that she needed a long, hot shower and a fresh pot of tea after briefly resting her tired eyes and taxed mind.

 _Perhaps_ , she thought just before falling onto her mattress and drifting off, _This is going to be more difficult than I thought_.


	9. Chapter 9: Drinks, Dancing, and A Friend

As it turned out, dancing wasn't the focus of the night.

It had all had started out predictably; A memo sent to Satya's phone with a set of coordinates and when to be there, but this time it came with the instruction to " _dress casual, but sexy_." It was certainly an odd request, but Satya could see where it was coming from. Sombra's locale of choice was, according to the memo, a nightclub and bar in Castillo known as Calaveras, known for energetic, alcohol-fueled nights that attracted a very sensual crowd. Upon changing into a midriff blouse, a sari, leggings, and heels, Satya believed she had fit the requirements, albeit not with great enthusiasm.

 _This serves no practicality,_ she thought as she switched out her artificial arm from the practical stark white it usually was to an appearance less distinguishable from an organic limb. _Unless attracting the attention of every impulse-driven troglodyte present is the goal, in which case tonight will be a complete success_.

When she teleported herself to the location, she at first wasn't quite sure if she was in the right place. The adjacent buildings had distinctly Spanish architecture, fitting since she was in Mexico, and the streets were well-kept but betrayed no trace of being somewhere that people frequented at all, let alone as often as a place for dancing. Satya glanced down at a hologram of the coordinates, confirming that the time, address, even exact latitude and longitude were all in order, and yet all appearances pointed in the direction of the entire area being a run-of-the-mill area, slightly dirtied by graffiti but otherwise no different than any other city district.

"Gotten lost, have we?" a voice queried.

By now Satya had gotten used to the voice, but its owner's uncanny ability to appear out of nowhere was still enough to startle her. Just to her left, Sombra materialized, wearing a leather jacket with the top buttons left revealingly open and a pair of skinny jeans that left little to imagination.

" _Ay chica_ , you clean up nicely!" she declared, placing her hands on Satya's shoulders and turning her so that they were facing each other. Eyeing her from top to bottom, she purred "I almost didn't think you had it in you."

Satya retreated back and dusted off her shoulders, wrapping her sari tighter. "I don't. I feel like an imbecile."

"That just means you're out of your comfort zone, which if you remember is the point. Now c'mon, we're burning moonlight." She grabbed her friend's hand and set off with enthusiastic speed.

Before Sombra could drag her in some direction, Satya whipped her hand out of her associate's grip and curled it behind her back, further lowering her posture's status.

Sombra stopped on a dime and did a one-eighty on her heel. "Something wrong _amiga_?"

"This can't be the right place." she said, gesturing to the innocuous buildings. "There's no indication of any sort of establishment here."

Sombra chuckled amusedly as she strode back towards her. Placing her arm around Satya's shoulder, she guided her down a graffiti-stained alleyway towards the side door of the nearest building. Knocking in a distinctive pattern, a slit in the door opened and a pair of eyes, squinting hard under thin sunglasses, peered through and shouted something in Spanish behind him once he saw who it was wanting to enter. The peephole slid shut and the clicking of multiple locks being undone could be heard.

"Around here," she said as the door swung open and her and Satya stepped inside. "there are always details hidden beyond the first glance."

Now inside, Satya was confronted by a scene she hadn't expected. She now stood at the head of a dance floor, illuminated by countless multi-coloured strobe lights and packed nearly to bursting with participants, twisting and shaking in extremely close proximity like a school of bait fish.

She shielded her eyes to keep from being blinded by the lights. At the same time, she clutched her torso as the beat of the dance pounded at such a high volume that she could literally feel it hitting her. She knew she had to leave immediately, but the writhing swarm on the dance floor had congregated right where she was now, forcing her to back away in an attempt to reclaim her personal space. She tried to find the door, but it had become lost in the deluge of sound and light and people. Backing into a corner, her eyes flicked around frantically, trying to find some kind of escape before she became overwhelmed.

It was then that she spotted one saving grace: Sombra, near the edge of the crowd, her hair an unmistakable beacon just at the edge of the crowd. Still, with her racing heart and the fearful chill that was blanketing her, making her way into the storm to find the eye was looking to be almost impossible.

She tried to center herself, but the noise drowned out her thoughts. Her attempts at serenity were shattered as sweat dripped down her face and hair, making them feel heavy and dirty. Before she could sink down into her corner and lose all faculty, however, the eye of the storm came to her.

"What's that thing you like to say?"

The words cut through the pandemonium as she looked through her heavy eyes and saw Sombra standing in front of her, reaching out a hand to aid in navigating the chaos.

Satya didn't know what to think about this after such a traumatic entrance, but she did know she had to leave the dance floor and that her superior was the only means of doing so. She took Sombra's hand delicately and followed as the two made all haste through the crowd to leave the room.

They exited out a door that led to the bar, a much quieter room with far less occupants. It still had its unfamiliar elements; The smell of cheap booze and cigarette smoke hit Satya like a wall and the bare, unkept simplicity of its aesthetic had no charm in her eye, but it was far preferable to the alternative. The two women circled the tables that took up most of the space and took seats at the bar itself. Across the room, a player piano created a bouncy riff while the Omnic on the room's small stage sang a tune about a steamy tryst in Cuba.

As they sat down, Sombra gestured to the silver-haired bartender, who slid a full shot glass over almost instantly without even looking at her. At the command of another gesture, he backed towards them, plucked a bottle of tequila off the rack, and set it down between the two before sliding over another shot glass, this one empty.

"Care for something? My treat." Sombra offered as she popped the cork off the bottle.

Satya lightly pushed the glass away. "Kind, but I don't drink." she said quietly but with a direct tone. "It's a choice." she added after she saw her affiliate eye her curiously and then stare off as though she was trying to figure out something in her head.

Sombra grasped the neck of the bottle and brought it closer. "Oh well, more for me I guess." She downed her glass in one take and briefly coughed before refilling it. "You do realize this means you're driving, right?"

Satya was puzzled. "I don't have a vehicle. I can take you to your place once we leave, if that's what you mean."

Sombra laughed. "Ah, not even two shots in and I'm not thinking straight. Herman must have finally gotten the good stuff, the _agarrado_." she mused, eyeing the bartender before downing her glass and refilling it again. As she did so, the laughter on her face faded away and her expression grew solemn.

"Hey listen, before I get any further into this." she said, pointing at the bottle. Once Satya had focused her attention on her, she continued. "About back at the dance floor, I'm really, _really_ sorry. I wanted to get you out of your comfort zone yes, but I guess I took you a step too far. I should have known better after that story you told me and I'm definitely not going to let it happen again. You don't have to forgive me if you don't want to, but I just wanted to let you know." She lowered her head so that she was looking down at her lap and let her hair fall over her face.

Satya sat silently for a long period of time, looking at Sombra, at the bar and its few patrons, at the peeling paint on the walls and the moths circling the lights on the ceiling, contemplating what she had seen and what she had been promised with what had been experienced.

Finally, she spoke up. "Are you still telling me the truth?"

"Of course."

She breathed in and loosened her sari, letting it slide off her shoulders and down her arms. "In that hall, when you found me, I was having an episode just like what I described in India, the one you said was 'sensory overload'. I was about to curl up and lose myself, but then I heard you and saw you and suddenly, I could process my thoughts again. I just felt... assured, like I knew I would be safe."

Sombra looked up at her friend, showing herself as touched while hiding her excitement.

"As well," Satya continued. "it could have just been a mistake."

Sombra nearly let her joy at hearing that colour her tone. _Totally worth it_.

"I wish you hadn't put me in such a position, but I am grateful that you got me out of it. You atoned, so I have no reason to be angry."

Now Sombra let out her elation, but gradually as so to not reveal anything to her astute companion. She brushed her hair back over to one side and slid her glass closer. "You're a kind woman underneath all that rigid order stuff, you know that?"

"And you're a welcome change from my last handler." Satya replied.

Sombra scoffed. " _Si_ , Sanjay isn't my type either. I guess that's just bosses sometimes." She paused long enough to down her next glass before looking directly into Satya's eyes. "Speaking of which, I think I owe you an explanation from yesterday. You remember that, right?"

Satya looked back with a face that indicated she wanted answers. "I don't usually forget things. I was actually hoping that I could find what you meant tonight."

"Great minds think alike." Sombra smirked. Before she continued on, she exhaled slowly and filled and downed another glass, briefly pounding her fist on her chest as the drink knocked the wind out of her. She recovered quickly though, and gave her answer. "The reason why I couldn't tell you about my boss' order regarding the Junkers is because where we were wasn't safe. When you're out in the open, you never know just who is listening to you."

"I didn't see anything." Satya said innocently.

"That just means they're good at hiding. You don't always see me show up, do you?"

Once Satya had conceded that her point was valid, Sombra extended one hand out towards her ally and summoned a holographic map with coordinates. "I wish I could tell you more, but I don't think you'd believe me if I didn't give you evidence to back it up. Tomorrow, you'll need to go to this place. It's nothing huge, just a walk-around of my boss' office, a meet-and-greet of the others I work with. Quite the _personajes,_ they are. I think you'll learn a few things."

A long lull followed before Satya broke the silence. "And...?"

"And that's it. A simple day to follow up the crazy one you had. I just need you to do one other thing for me." She leaned over in her bar stool towards Satya until their faces were so close that their noses were about to touch. "I need you to be curious." she said with quiet-voiced urgency. "Not just now, not just then, always. Always be asking questions, always be wanting to know why, always be looking for answers. You have no idea how much it'll help you."

Satya retreated back in her seat, considering the question and the seeming dodging of her question from yesterday. It almost seemed as though Sombra hadn't given her a full answer, a classic Sanjay move. On the other hand, her words and actions had given off a sense of trust, and her apology earlier hadn't given off anything that indicated insincerity. She had also not seen any reason to believe Sombra was playing her like Sanjay had tried to do. Perhaps she was actually trying to make a new friend? The evidence definitely supported it, and it was leading to a conclusion that .

"Very well." she answered. "I will try."

Sombra sat back up in her chair and smiled meaningfully. "I knew I could count on you." She picked up her glass and held it aloft in a toast. "To friendship."

Satya was briefly concerned about not being able to toast back, but then she saw the glass she had turned down earlier sliding her way, filled with water and sent along with a silent " _you're welcome_ " from Herman the bartender.

"To trust." she toasted back before they both bottoms-upped their drinks.

Just then, the music picked back up again. The songstress from earlier had been replaced by a pair of men, one with an acoustic guitar and the other with a set of bongos. Together, the two of them played an upbeat melody while singing in Spanish.

Sombra, now past the point of just getting a buzz off the poison she'd picked, perked up like a meerkat. "Ooh, I love this song!" she proclaimed excitedly.

Satya listened closely to the singers and their music, attempting to discern their value. "They are decent with their instruments, I agree, but I don't know what the lyrics are."

Sombra chuckled. "You really need to learn Spanish, _amiga_. You hear that one word they're repeating?"

"Yes. What does it mean?"

"'Slowly'. I'll let you figure out the rest." Just then, the Mexican's eyes twinkled with inspiration and a grin swept across her face. "You know, the night's still young, and I did say we were going dancing. You thinking what I'm thinking, _chica_?"

Catching on swiftly and deciding that the idea wasn't too far outside her comfort zone, Satya unwrapped her sari and draped it over her chair. She extended an open palm towards her friend. "Shall we dance?"

Without saying a word more, Sombra grabbed her hand and guided the two of them to an open area just in front of the bar. While Sombra did a sexy groove to the beat, Satya held nothing back and launched into her full dance regimen, drawing attention and praise from everyone present. She realized that this was exactly what she'd wanted to avoid, but the thought wasn't as discomforting as it would have been.

Her friend made sure of that.


	10. Chapter 10: Curiosity

Satya's next assignment was deceptively unimportant.

She'd barely remembered it, what with the reveal that she would be visiting the office of Sombra's boss being squeezed in between a soulful apology and adrenaline-fueled dancing that had culminated with having to carry Sombra to her house a few blocks away. As such, the awakening she received from her phone's latest memo was particularly rude, and the idea of leaving it until she had better rested off the long night she'd had crossed her mind. The notion fleeted, however, as she rolled over towards her headboard and read the message.

 ** _Mi amiga,_**

 **Today's the big day; I know you're going to impress the** ** _gran jefe_** **. Normally I'd go with you, but I don't place much faith in my stomach keeping everything together if I try to stand up. Also, the next time I decide to down shots of Herman's new tequila like Tic-Tacs, just hit me. Hard. In the face. I'm certain it won't hurt worse than this damn migraine.**

 **Don't worry, I'll be fine, time heals all wounds** **_y otras cosas por el estilo_** **(ah shit, I forgot you don't know Spanish. Basically, it means "and all that jazz"). Anyways, I *should* be back on my feet by the time you're done. As always, I've sent you the coordinates. We'll meet back at your place. I'd love to hear all about it.**

 **-Sombra.**

 **P.S. Remember what I said. Be curious.**

As Satya closed the file on her phone and began her morning routine, she found herself being confronted with an unfamiliar feeling, one that slowed her pace towards the shower and placed a hand on her chest as she felt her heartbeat accelerating. It had been a long time since nerves had gotten to her like they were now, but she remembered it with great detail.

 _Like the day I met Sanjay_ , she recollected. As a fresh, raw recruit, she had been sent to his office, alone and unsure just what to expect or what to do. The two had met while she was admiring a painting that hung in the hallways of Vishkar's home office. As she straightened its frame slightly, he had ambled up beside her.

* * *

 _"A masterpiece, isn't it?" he said, his eyes searching over the artwork._

 _Satya looked over at the person who stood alongside her, a young man with a wide nose and mildly pointed chin wearing a Vishkar uniform. Uncertainty grew within herself; Was she supposed to answer him? Was she supposed to know him? Either way, she'd be taking a chance that she'd end up in an awkward situation, something she actively tried to avoid._

 _After a few seconds, she slowly glanced over at him and went with an arbitrary decision. "Yes." she responded meekly. "Very much so."_

 _The man continued with subtle enthusiasm: "I enjoy how this particular work reflects Vishkar. Each brush stroke is precise, its intentions well defined. Everything on the canvas has an exact place within the artist's vision. Without a doubt preferable to the surreal movement of its era."_

 _Satya had always had mixed feelings about art; On one hand, it could use wild and random techniques to create what she saw as utter chaos, regardless of whatever explanation accompanied the piece. On the other hand, pieces such as this provided a friendly perspective, showcasing the same desire for order that she had. Perhaps, in these gilded halls, she had found a kindred spirit?_

 _She now spoke with more confidence. "I agree. I also appreciate how the artist does not mix the colours, further exemplifying the contrast with its contemporaries."_

 _"And magnifying the reflection." the man interrupted. "There is right, and then there is wrong. Good and evil, day and night. Each one is evident, easy to stay within the boundaries of, and must be taught to the unlearned."_

 _"It only takes one with the right mindset to see it through. Order through peace, peace through calm, calm through order."_

 _An impressed smile crept across the man's face as he swiveled his head and regarded her. "I've never heard that. Who are you quoting?"_

 _Satya saw and took the opportunity to lightly brag. "Myself. It is a mantra I have developed. It saw me through the Academy and still rings true today."_

 _"Ah, so you're the graduate they assigned to me." The man turned himself towards her and bowed in the traditional Indian manner. "Sanjay Korpal, at your service."_

 _Satya, realizing quickly that Sanjay was the supervisor she'd been sent to, returned the gesture. "Satya Vaswani. Humbly yours, sir."_

 _Sanjay rose and spread his arms outward. "Welcome to the Field Operations division, Ms. Vaswani."_

Field Operations? _This caught Satya unprepared. "Sir? I am not sure I understand. My expertise is in Architecture." she protested, making sure her words weren't minced but also maintaining a submissive status._

 _Sanjay chuckled quietly. "I am aware. But such creativity and cunning as yours, the kind that I hear garners the highest overall marks in Academy history no less, can't be squandered on drawing blueprints and erecting skyscrapers."_

 _Satya was nearly tickled pink. "Thank you very much, sir. I promise I will use my talents to their fullest extent."_

 _"I will expect no less." He began to walk down the hallway and gestured for her to follow him. "Together, we can give the masses a better world."_

* * *

The only problem was that in the years they had worked together, it didn't happen. Satya quickly learned that her handler was highly ambitious, never missing a chance to appeal to his own superiors for greater power, as well as take unsavory measures to obtain it should his mewling diplomacy prove ineffective. As well, he was an unremorseful liar, gladly willing and able to dupe herself or others into furthering an agenda that had no indication of giving anyone except himself a better world.

Thankfully, Sombra had, at least in this early stage, proven to be different. She had no idea just what Sombra's own boss would be like though, and it unnerved her. Still, she had to soldier on; To not arrive on a day when she was expected would be tantamount to signing her own death warrant.

By the time her reminiscing was done, Satya had showered, dressed in her office uniform, polished off her usual breakfast, and was undergoing her dances. Her mantra rang in her mind as the memory flickered away like a dying candle. By the time she had finished, her teleporter had been conjured and the pathway to Sombra's coordinates had been opened. Steeling herself, she took herself through the portal one purposeful step at a time.

When she arrived and closed the path behind her, her surroundings had changed significantly. She was standing on a balcony overlooking a sheer chasm that must have dropped over a thousand feet straight down. On the other side, mountains protruded upwards, pointing towards the midday sky with rugged grandeur. Satya would have observed the landscape for a little longer, but she didn't want to risk running late. As such, she followed the balcony to her left, where an ornately designed doorway led inside.

Without an indication as to where her meeting would be taking place, she was left to wander around. At first, this lack of organization nearly overwhelmed her as she searched the hallways and massive rooms of the interior with increasing urgency and panic. She was on the verge of opening another portal and returning home when Sombra's advice cut through her fear like a scalpel.

 _Remember what I said. Be curious_.

A situation such as this was most certainly out of her comfort zone, but the words and the memory of her friend's kindness the night before were still fresh.

 _Maybe_ , she pondered, _this is another such scenario? If so, she will be proud to hear that I can keep myself together_.

She centered herself in her current room before she closed her eyes and took in long, deep breaths for some time, all the while letting Sombra's message and her mantra take root and pacify her emotions. Disorder could never win, especially not today.

Her feelings calmed, she took to exploring the interior with what could have been constituted as gusto. Her searches took her down countless hallways with expensive red carpets and mahogany walls lined with sculptures and priceless paintings, and into massive rooms lit by chandeliers and decorated in the same way as the halls. It didn't take her long to realize the complex she was in was carved inside a mountain, with a stately mansion at the very peak and the rest hidden from sight inside massive hollow chambers.

 _Natural architecture_ , she mused. _Always crude compared to hard-light, but still a sight to behold when bent to human will_.

After going upwards, she then turned her attention down. As she searched the deepest corridors, she noticed that the surroundings were becoming more modern, with pure white colouration and modern building materials taking the place of the vibrant reds and sturdy browns, and steel, glass, and plastic being used more often than wood and gold. As she came to one of the lowest areas, she was confronted by a locked, unmarked door. Initially, she went to turn around, but her friend's wisdom took hold and compelled her to continue forth. The lock was no match for her constructions and slid open easily. With each step she took inward, ceiling-mounted lights gradually illuminated themselves, revealing the room's contents. Strewn across various counters and hanging from the walls and roof were machines, each one looking more surgical, and in some cases insidious, than the ones before. The gleam of polished instruments forced her to cover her eyes, and the overall feel of the room unsettled her nerves. What was what looked to be a combination of a laboratory and a doctor's office doing inside a mansion in a mountain?

As she rounded a corner, she came to the strangest sights of all.

Before her laid a hospital bed, its occupant an unconscious woman with knee-length raven hair, thin ruby lips, and striking purple skin. Embedded in her arms were multiple tubes of fluid that pumped strange concoctions, while a vital sign monitor beeped inhumanly slowly. In this sleep, the woman didn't look peaceful; her chest wasn't rising and falling, nor did her abnormally stiff position looked induced. In fact, Satya couldn't make out anything natural out at all whatsoever. It was as though the woman was a completely blank slate, with not even so much as a synapse firing inside her brain at that moment.

Next to this was a suspended animation tank, but instead of being filled with water, it held a great cloud of jet-black mist that slowly twisted around itself. The contorting mass was so thick that Satya couldn't see if there was anything within, but she still tried to gaze through, mesmerized by its oddity and the wish to sate her newfound curiosity.

Ever so slowly, she tiptoed closer to the tank and its swirling contents. Her continued inability to pierce the chaotic veil and find the eye of the storm drove her closer and closer until she was mere inches away from the glass, her nose nearly pressed against it. From such a close proximity, she almost thought she could hear the mist, and it seemed to be making the sound of a whisper-quiet, perpetual exhale without a single pause for breath.

 _What on Earth is in there? If I didn't know any better, I would think that it sounds... alive._

As she stared deeper still into the black void, something from within appeared directly on the other side of the glass without warning. It rapidly took shape, becoming a pale face resembling some sort of ghost, with soulless eyes and a dagger-pointed nose. Satya yelped at the sight and jumped back as it faded back into nothing. Before she could catch settle herself down, a sharp, whining hiss further startled her as a hole in the top of the tank opened and some sort of gas was added through a tube. As it happened, the already-dim lights flickered and the dark maelstrom intensified, shaking its enclosure violently.

Now watching with growing dread, Satya immediately came to the realization that her curiosity had overstepped its boundaries. Before she could beat her hasty retreat though, she felt an icy hand wrap around her throat and squeeze hard. Simultaneously, the lights ceased to flicker and settled on beaming steadily downward once again, revealing that the hand now trying to choke out Satya belonged to the unfeeling woman, now conscious and standing, her unblinking eyes locked on their target with lethal intent.

Her nails dug into Satya's neck, drawing a a small stream of blood that trickled down onto her uniform. With desperate strength, Satya scrambled to pry the murderous hand away, but it was to no avail; The woman had inhuman physicality to go with her appearance. She tried to summon a construct to remove the threat, but panic consumed her thoughts and actions as she gasped for air.

Before what she saw around her could turn to blackness and her body could go cold and limp, a voice called out from behind.

" _Le lac des cygnes!_ "


	11. Chapter 11: Limitless

" _Le lac des cygnes!_ "

As suddenly as it had begun, the icy killer relinquished her death grip and glided back into her bed, leaving Satya to drop to her hands and knees, coughing and sputtering for precious, life-giving oxygen. As she attempted to stand without feeling light-headed and her vision refocused, she saw that another person had just stepped in front of her. This person was another woman, with short burnt-orange hair, wearing business casual attire, and staring down at her with a mixture of mild amusement and concern.

Satya had now lost her taste for curiosity, and was still in a state of panic after her near death. As she picked herself up off the floor, she impulsively grabbed the second woman's tie and formed her photon projector, shoving it up to the woman's nose.

"Take it easy, my dear. You're in no danger." the mystery woman said with an Dublin-accented alto voice.

Satya, in no mood for trickery, didn't move a muscle.

"If I had wanted to harm you, I wouldn't have saved your life by speaking up ten seconds ago." the woman reasoned.

By this point, the air circulation had returned to Satya's head and the rush of emotions that came with immediate danger had finally subsided. Still, she remained poised to defend herself for a few seconds more before the woman's logic clicked. When it finally did, she released her tie and let the projector dissipate into nothing. She hung her head shamefully and offered a humble apology, aware of what was likely to come as a result of her actions.

Her speculation was unfounded. "Unnecessary. Cognitive function suffers when the brain is deprived of oxygen and when the fight or flight instinct takes over. It's perfectly understandable."

Satya maintained her posture. "Thank you... for understanding." she answered quietly as she brushed a lock of hair that had gone astray back into place.

"However," the woman continued, her face morphing from sympathetic to stern as she straightened her tie. "what I don't understand is why you were snooping in places you shouldn't have been to begin with." She strode up to Satya and looked down upon her, making direct eye contact. Satya now could see that the woman's eyes were each a different colouration; One pupil being a shade of sky blue, the other blood red.

The unexpected asymmetry made her desire to look away, but she could tell that this person was not going to let anything be until she got an answer. Satya put on her best calm face and offered the only explanation she had. "I-I was sent here. To meet the person in charge of the organization that owns this estate. The person who told me to be here is named Sombra."

The woman raised an eyebrow at the name drop as a smile spread across one side of her face. "Interesting..." she said, her eyes narrowing in contemplation as she trailed off.

"You know her?" Satya asked.

The woman flicked her eyes over and regarded Satya with a mixture of thoughts and emotions that the latter couldn't seem to discern before glancing over at the terrifying oddities. "The name, yes."

Satya watched with fearful uncertainty as the woman stepped next to the bed and studied the monitor. The woman seemed to feel it in the air and gestured for her to come closer.

Apprehensively, she moved closer, refusing to let her guard down lest the events of just over a minute ago be repeated. Eventually, she had made her way to the bed next to the red-eyed woman, who cracked another smile.

"She's harmless in this state. You simply had the misfortune of finding her at the very end of the conditioning period."

Satya remained motionless and utterly silent, the fight or flight instinct mentioned earlier grappling with her calming techniques.

"And you my dear," the woman said, her tone warm but also aloof. "how might you have come to know Sombra?"

The question didn't seem to register through the conflicting mindsets, so she repeated the question. This time, Satya snapped out of it, though she still kept her focus on the attempted killer. "She is my handler, and my friend."

"I haven't seen you before. Where did she find you?"

"I am an employee of Vishkar."

The woman's thin lips parted into a grin, which then turned into a chuckle as she extended her hand. "Moira O'Deorain. Charmed to make your acquaintance."

Satya managed to stomach the uneasy feeling that came with meeting someone new as she returned the gesture, only to notice that the arm Moira had offered was withered and greyed to the point of looking as though it were dead. Even more disturbing was that touching this hand made her feel exhausted, as though her energy, her very life force, was being drained out through it. She forced down the sensation and glanced at the hand for no more than a second, hoping that she hadn't been noticed. "Satya Vaswani."

"The pleasure's all mine, Ms. Vaswani. I've been following Vishkar's work for some time. What was your division?"

The familiarity of the conversation had a relaxing effect, as did releasing herself from the handshake. "Rio, but I have recently transferred to Higher New York." she said proudly.

Moira chuckled again. "I'm assuming you know Sanjay Korpal then?"

 _How many people does Sanjay know?_ "...Yes. How do you know him?"

"I've been listening to that little chancer try to weasel his way onto Oasis' Ministry for years. It's almost expected by now." Moira remarked with a hint of entertained exasperation.

Now it was Satya's turn to smirk, but she was interrupted when Moira placed a spindly finger under her chin and tilted her head back slightly. "Now now, look what's happened here; We can't let that go untreated." she said, referring to the cut made on Satya's neck during the attack.

Satya ran her own finger across the wound, noticing that there was still an inkling of blood that hadn't scabbed over. She lowered her head to stop the uncomfortable feeling of the stranger's long nails on her skin and turned a foot in anticipation of leaving. "That's very thoughtful, but I should be going. I'm expected for a meeting, unless... you're the boss Sombra was talking about?"

Moira scoffed. "Unfortunately no, but you're not far from where he is. You wouldn't want to meet him looking any less than perfect, however."

She had a point: An abrasion such as hers would, on top of being unprofessional, raise a bevy of awkward and potentially damning questions, and Satya had never been the best of liars.

Her foot slid back into its original place and she folded her arms behind her back. "Do you... have a bandage I could use?"

"A bandage? No, but rather something far better." Moira walked swiftly and determinedly past Satya before stopping at a rolling chair. On the counter next to it sat a device that appeared to be a combination of a centrifuge and an IV fluid set. She beckoned Satya to sit down, to which she agreed.

As Satya took her seat, the machine seemed to loom over her, a weird creation that she could tell was not designed for any sort of beauty, but rather for cold pragmatism. Such was a theme that fit the rest of the items in the room, as well as the person who used them. The lighting added to the feeling Satya got, casting long shadows that emphasized the jagged features and mixed them together.

"What are you going to do?" Satya asked apprehensively.

Moira's response came as she knelt down in front of Satya and wiped off the dried blood on the cut with a cotton ball soaked in disinfectant. "Just wait and see."

The injury cleaned, the doctor turned her attention to the device, filling a clear, finger-sized vial with some sort of black solution with the flip of a switch and spinning it in the centrifuge for a few seconds with a button push. Once it had ground to a halt, the liquid was sucked up through a tube into the IV bag.

Moira again grasped Satya's chin with her withered hand, using her regular one to insert the end of a second tube that snaked from the container into her patient's wound. Satya briefly squirmed from the sensation caused as the tube was inserted and the compound made its way into her neck. As the machine began to hum quietly, Moira sidestepped to another part of the counter and began fiddling with another sample.

Whatever Moira was pumping into Satya felt cold, and burned mildly as it left the end of the tube. Her extremities began to feel numb, but in her chest it was as though she had been given a massive shot of adrenaline. It was a sense she had never gotten before from something and someone she knew nothing about, but then again, the past few days had been full of things such as these.

"The hand unnerves you, doesn't it?"

Satya was brought back to earth by the question, the person who asked it now watching her with a moderate interest. Having not entirely heard it, Satya replied "Excuse me?"

"When I introduced myself, you glanced down at my hand. Just now you squirmed when I held you still. Don't worry, you're not the first to be react in such a manner."

Satya didn't answer, rather she acted as though she hadn't heard, knowing she had backed herself into a corner that was only going to end in the disorder of an shouting match.

"Well, come on. Spit it out; Is that what you're thinking?" Moira prodded. "I know you can hear me."

Unable to avoid any longer, Satya answered, keeping her tone as submissive and non-offensive as possible. "I believed that, in my opinion, it seemed... asymmetrical and I... I didn't know why anyone would do that to themselves." With that, she curled up in the chair, preparing for a verbal lashing.

Once again, her speculation was unfounded. "Is that all?" Moira laughed. "The answer is simple; It's the same reason I believe you have a prosthetic."

Satya's eyes turned to her left and peered down at her arm. The design she had with her business uniform was meant to look organic, but evidently not enough so that it could fool everyone. Memories flashed through her mind; Undergoing physical enhancement was mandatory for Vishkar field agents, but she had been the only one of her contemporaries who had wanted it, not simply for more direct manipulation of the materials, but also to alleviate a chip on her shoulder. " _Insecure_ ", " _Obsessive_ ", and " _Awkward_ " they had called her, and yet when the time came for the procedure they all cowered while she was eager, proving to them all that the adjectives they should have used were " _Dedicated_ ", " _Driven_ ", and " _A Cut Above_ ".

"It's rare to find another who will give anything to transcend limitations." Moira said.

Satya looked up, puzzled. "What do you mean?"

Moira's lips spread into a thin smile, and confidence surged in her eyes. "You know what I mean, my dear. Like Richard III, I consider a black limb to be a trivial sacrifice in exchange for power. For instance, if it weren't for the experiment that brought upon its frailty, that mark of yours would have scarred."

Satya looked at the concoction as the last drops slithered out of the tube into her neck, then examined the hand. It seemed as though the veins that bulged from the sallow skin ran with the same fluid, but she knew that correlation did not equal causation.

"If you don't believe me, take a look for yourself." Moira reached for a scalpel on the counter and, after cleaning it with more disinfectant, made a long slice across her palm. Where there should have been blood, the black fluid poured forth before evaporating into a thick mist and only seconds before the wound closed up like it had never been made. Simultaneously, Satya clasped the end of the tube and yanked it out, wincing as the needle's sting flared upon exit. She could see that once exposed to the air, the last droplets also floated off in whisps.

"And if you think that's the extent of it..." Moira continued, gazing at the tank full of that very same cloudy substance. "Would you believe that inside there is a man?"

Even though she had seen that ghostly face, it was still hard for Satya to wrap her head around that fact.

"I can tell you're still skeptical." Moira smirked. She then walked across the room to the opposite counter where a holo-computer was and, upon typing in a few commands, called forth a hologram on the screen and motioned for Satya to come over and look. The screen showed a man, draped in a black hooded overcoat and wearing the same mask she had seen earlier, stepping into the open tank and letting himself, all at once, dissolve into the cloud of swirling, inky darkness that now filled it.

"A testament to what we are all capable of when we throw off our shackles." Moira said, triumph in her voice and ambition glinting in her eyes. "Meta-human power, once relegated to fiction, now brought to life. In that form, there is not a single thing that can harm him." She now gazed over Satya with that same ambition. "You, however, have even greater potential. To be able to alter reality to your whim is the ultimate transcendence of limitations."

Satya's reaction was mixed, not knowing where Moira was leading but also feeling as though she'd been complemented.

"Skyscrapers are merely the beginning; Imagine, if you will, an army, able to outnumber any opponent and replace any casualties with but a thought, and yet, it is an army consisting of only one. Every tank, aircraft, and soldier is their will made real, made completely invincible."

"But Vishkar has never sought out military contracts. They are an architectural firm."

"Sanjay must not have told you about his applications to Oasis, or his tenure in New York."

Confusion swept through Satya like wildfire. _This can't be true. Vishkar has never stooped to such levels, not even with their takeover of Rio..._

Almost instantly, she realized it was time to leave. "Thank you for your hospitality, Ms O'Deorain, but I really should be going." she said quickly while offering a bow.

"The pleasure's all mine, my dear." Moira replied, again raising an eyebrow. "I'm glad to see your injury healed properly. You may feel a little queasy in an hour, but that's normal."

By this point, Satya had already about-faced and was nearing the door. "I will remember that."

"Speaking of which, if you ever find yourself in Oasis or you want to push your limits even further, you know where to find me." Moira called out, but Satya was already gone and the door had clicked shut behind her.

Satya took a few more steps down the hall before nearly collapsing, the only reason she didn't hit the floor being that she was able to catch herself by impacting the wall with a heavy bump. Inside, it felt like something was eating at her. _It's probably just the queasy feeling she mentioned_ , she told herself, even though 'queasy', she knew, wasn't an accurate description.

 _I'll feel better when this is over. I just need to find Sombra's boss and get it over with._


	12. Chapter 12: Greater Designs, Part 2

Moira had been right. The person she was looking for was not far away.

Hurrying back towards a forked hall she had passed earlier, Satya scrambled through her memory to find which route she had taken. The faster she met with this person, the better; the encounter with the Irishwoman, on top of that frightfully powerful brew of chemicals, had left her with a rotten feeling in her stomach, and she simply wanted to do what she had to before going home to Higher New York and getting some well-deserved rest and a good cup of tea.

Before she could decide which direction to take, the choice was made for her by a sound that resonated through the corridors. Amplified by the narrow, bare walls, it sounded like the brief crack of thunder during a rainstorm, even though Satya knew for sure that she was over a mile underground. The crack was followed by another just seconds after, then another, and then another still, each one roaring in her ears as though it were less than fifty feet away.

Satya reflexively covered her ears to shield out the noise and nearly doubled over as the pulsing beat permeated through her and only made the rottenness inside her feel even worse. Not much time had passed though until she had become accustomed enough to it that she was able to stand up properly again and she was able to try to make any further decisions.

Each pounding pulse through the hall made her flinch, and her every instinct told her that staying in this one spot, let alone going in the direction that the sound originated from, was the worst possible idea. After all, had her last bout of curiosity not ended in such a way that would likely stave her away from it forever? This thought lingered for some time, repeating with every step she made towards the sound's origin point and growing louder alongside it.

She arrived at the door to find it slid open upon nearing and that behind it was near-pitch dark, obscuring the creator of the now-deafening sound. Satya nearly had to cover her ears again, but was able to withstand it through sheer resolve. She now stood facing what was ahead, the relative safety of the previously-traversed hallway behind her, and the room and the answer to the question of what the noise in front of her. Fear now took hold, fear of that unknown, of the possibilities that came with stepping outside her comfort zone. She readied to step back and return to the fork, but it hit her before she could.

The past few days, Satya realized, had put her outside her comfort zone almost nonstop. She had been upheaved from Rio and brought to a gleaming city that floated over a powder keg, met a strange woman who had broken into her new home and told her of her new job, sprung two of the most deplorable beings on the face of the planet from the one place they belonged, and then befriended that strange woman over drinks at a bar in some far-flung hole in the wall in Mexico. A week ago she had never even considered that she could ever handle such unorthodoxy in her life, but despite its difficulty, she had powered on through it, ensuring that order would always be around to temper the chaos she had been introduced to. Most importantly, she still had that order in her own life; her morning routine, her dancing, her mantra, things that she knew she simply couldn't live without.

 _One last unknown_ , she resolved. _One more piece of chaos to face, and then I will return to New York and let it all be driven away by the comfort of routine._

With that, taking in a deep breath and holding it in for as long as she possibly could, she stepped into the room.

The first few lights sparked to life immediately, piercing the darkness and revealing dim outlines of what appeared to be some sort of gymnasium or training room. As she slowly progressed forth, more lights made their existence known and showed more vague details of the room. Above her, Satya could see an observation booth that overlooked the training area through tall panes of glass, and weights, pre-programmed training drones, and other pieces of equipment could be seen scattered around the floor. In the dead center of the room stood a man, blanketed in darkness, letting loose a torrent of vicious blows to a punching bag.

 _This is it. The source of the sound._

She now stood just under twenty feet away from the man, who seemed to be oblivious to the fact that he wasn't alone. Though most of his distinguishing features were concealed, he stood nearly seven feet tall and was built like a professional fighter. His connections with the bag indicated that as well, as each bare-knuckled punch and kick delivered was savage, but well-disciplined. Aside from the connections, he was completely, eerily, silent.

Satya treaded lightly across the hardwood floor as she inched closer, not wanting to interrupt him but also wanting to be ready to speak up; She knew better than most the importance of completing a task without interjection. The floor clicked and clacked underneath her footsteps as she now closed to ten feet, hoping that the pounding would drown out her approach.

She was nearly able to.

At five feet away, the man, still obscured by impenetrable blackness, delivered a ferocious right haymaker that ripped the suspending leather straps like pieces of twine, blew a wave of air into Satya's face upon impact, and sent the bag flying across the room and into a wall with a deafening crack. She gasped in shock and surprise as sand poured from multiple ruptures and it slunk down flaccidly to the floor.

The man now calmly stepped out of his fighting stance and appeared to let himself go, his shoulders dropping and his breathing becoming louder as he studied over his hands, flexing them, savouring the power he had just unleashed.

If there was a time to speak up, that was it, and she knew it. Satya was about to introduce herself when she was struck by a feeling of utter fear. She could see his neck twist as he looked over his shoulder at her, and though she couldn't see it she could practically feel his stare making eye contact and locking her where she stood like headlights on a deer. The queasiness in her stomach returned and her organic hand began to shake wildly, but she didn't dare act on them for fear of him doing something. It didn't matter what he could possibly do; Her mind was too busy surmising how it could end horribly for her.

This wordless meeting continued for over a minute before the silence was finally broken. "Well," he said, his voice a rich, authoritative Nigerian baritone. "are you just going to stand here? Speak up, child."

Satya knew she had to fight her instincts; She was not going to leave here knowing that this day was in vain. She ran her fingers through her hair to straighten it, held her trembling hand in place behind her back, and readied herself mentally. _Order through peace, peace through calm, calm through order_.

Her voice excellently masked her inner feelings. "Good day, sir. I had no intention to interrupt you, and I offer my sincerest apology if I did so."

"Spare me such pleasantries." he replied sternly as he turned to face her head-on, towering over her small frame. "Who are you?"

"Satya Vaswani, of the Vishkar corporation." She said as she bowed. "I was sent here on orders from Sombra to meet her superior."

"Ah, so you're the one who sprung the Junkers from their pen." he stated, his tone losing its edge. "For someone as inexperienced as yourself, you have my congratulations for executing the task in such a manner."

"Thank you sir, though if I may correct you, I have had extensive Vishkar training."

"And it has served you well. I always have use for assets with your skills."

The usage of his words didn't slip past her. "You do?"

The man briefly paused, then broke into a deep chuckle. "Indeed. For you see, you needn't search further, child; I am Sombra's overseer."

Inwardly, Satya breathed a sigh of relief. _At last_. "It is a great honour to meet you, sir."

"The pleasure is all mine. I have been expecting you."

Satya's shoulders curled inward submissively. "I am terribly sorry to have kept you waiting. I take full responsibility."

"No harm was done, child." He outreached an immense, bulky arm and gestured that she follow him. "Come. I wish to speak with you."

He turned to walk further into the dark that still consumed half the room and she followed. More lights activated as she moved, but the ones that stayed doused still provided a wall that kept the boss concealed.

"I apologize again for my entrance. It must have been startling." she said.

"There is no need to be sorry. I am never caught unprepared." he answered in an assertive, matter-of-fact way.

"...Very well then."

This did little to address that he hadn't given a name when she had. _Who is he? What is he_? Wild speculation crossed her thoughts before being immediately being recognized and snuffed out; No time or place, especially not this one, was proper for such chaos.

After a few more steps, they reached another door that slid open effortlessly to reveal a corner office. The lights inside sprang to life as well and showed off several exotic decorations along the walls, but, like before, these were only the ones that weren't serving to hide the attributes of this person. Along one wall, a series of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked into a parallel room. She inquisitively peered down to see what appeared to be a conference room, but the man dimmed the windows with the flip of a switch and shooed her away before she could make out any details.

After she had taken a seat on the opposite side of a sparse desk, he immediately continued their conversation. "What do you know about my organization?" he queried, leaning back in a chair that looked custom-built for his immensity.

"Only what Sombra has told me. You are a third party with interest in Vishkar business, and that I was chosen to carry out assignments on your behalf."

His response was delayed enough that she knew he was thinking over what she had said, but just how he had reacted was still unknown. "What do you think of Sombra?" he finally asked.

Not having a clue as to what he was getting at, she decided to answer truthfully. "I have found her to be honest, compassionate, and fair, though rather insistent that I be placed in uncomfortable situations."

An even longer delay followed, as well as another unreadable expression. "She certainly does create that feeling, doesn't she?" he said, his inflection briefly turning glib.

Now it was Satya's turn to not reply; Her attention had been caught by one of the pieces of art hanging on the walls, a painting that was slightly off balance, compelling her to make right. By the time she had risen from her chair and walked over to remedy the nagging problem, her benefactor had followed her, standing just behind her and to the right.

"A masterpiece, isn't it?" he said, his words breathy with admiration.

"Indeed. I have seen it before, in Utopaea."

"Vishkar headquarters. Theirs is a duplicate; This cost me a great deal to obtain."

"I can see why. It is an embodiment of order's superiority over chaos and how they must never cross."

The man first chuckled at her statement, then let it grow into a hearty, bellowing laugh. Satya looked over her shoulder back at him. "Have I said something funny?" she asked, genuinely perplexed.

The way he answered showed that he had been waiting to say this. "A unique view to be certain, but one that doesn't see the bigger picture, both figuratively and literally."

"I'm... not sure what you mean."

"It is simple. Look closely."

Satya leaned in and examined the painting from top to bottom. The work was straightforward; a Victorian-era scene of several couples hand in hand, as well as a wealthy man on horseback as they strolled past a large field adjacent to a city block. Low, thick clouds hung over the field, immersing it in shades of darkness and adding a sinister feel, while the cityscape glowed with the light from each building, adding an attractive shimmer as contrast. Visually, there was little more that could be extracted from it aside from what value Satya and Vishkar had put on it.

"First, observe the man on horseback. He wears a military uniform of Napoleon's era."

"I... didn't recognize it." Satya said, a tinge of shame colouring her words and expression. "I'm not familiar with European military history."

"You didn't even recognize the saber at his belt?"

Satya opened her mouth to try to defend herself from criticism, but words adequate enough to do so failed her.

"Now look at the women. They stand respectably, but none of them gaze over the field. Some have red cheeks and hold handkerchiefs, telltale signs of emotion laid bare."

This got the wheels inside Satya's head turning; What was it that had overlooked? "The site of a tragedy, perhaps?"

The man drew closer behind her until she could almost feel that his hulking mass was a hair's length behind where she stood. "A strong conclusion, if it weren't for the final part. Where the women won't look, the men do, especially the one on horseback."

Now, what she had been blind to, she saw crystal-clear. "This is the sight of a battle, and the men were in it."

"Precisely. For you see, this painting uses themes of order and chaos, but not as one over the other. No, they are as always, inextricable."

 _What is he talking about? Doesn't he know anything of Vishkar's work?!_

The man continued, his voice growing in power and authority until he could have been speaking in front of a gathering of thousands. "Rather, order and chaos are linear. For one to exist, the other must come first, for they are the building blocks of true strength. Chaos is necessary, as it weeds out the weak and curses them to obscurity. Once this is done, order may arise from the ashes, fueled by glory and allowing the victors to crush all who stand in their way. Such is as it has been since the dawn of time, and shall always be. Your Vishkar knows it, and pursues it with admirable zeal."

Out of everything that had shocked and scared Satya on this day, this had been the most unexpected. _Why on Earth would Vishkar associate with anyone with such dangerous beliefs?_ "Sir, if I may, no one at Vishkar would ever condone such an ideology."

He laughed again. "In which case," he said, raising one hand and slowly clasping it into a fist. "you may find these next few weeks to be... challenging. Still, creativity and intellect such as yours, I am sure, will adapt quickly."

She felt the need to object as anger swelled up within her, but forced herself to swallow it down as his fist tightened. It was a longer amount of time before she replied to him. "I will not let you down." she whispered submissively.

His voice again grew in power as he spoke. "Good; I will hold you to that. Now, I suggest that you be on your way. Your talents will be most useful in achieving our ends and I intend to see that they are put to work immediately. Remember: There are always greater designs, and once seen through, they will give the masses a better world."

Reasoning that this was no time for a debate, Satya summoned a teleporter and readied to leave for her apartment so she could recuperate from yet another chaotic day. After getting lost in a mountain-sized complex, nearly being choked out, and meeting two of the most fearsome people she'd ever seen, she found herself just wanting that fresh cup of green Darjeeling more than ever.

Just before she left, she pivoted on her heel as she remembered a question she had been holding onto. "Sir, I'm afraid I didn't catch your name."

"I did not give it." was the blunt reply.

Again, Satya wanted to object, but was intimidated into silence. Turning back towards the portal, she breathed a sigh of relief as she left her ordeal behind her and entered her apartment, where Sombra was waiting on the sofa with a cup of tea in hand.

"You look like you just had the craziest day of your life, _amiga_." she said, a warm smile on her face. "Care to tell me what happened?"


	13. Chapter 13: And Seem A Saint

Satya told her everything.

Sombra sat next to her friend, utterly silent and without breaking eye contact, soaking in every little detail as it was described. Satya, meanwhile, told her of her unannounced entrance to the mountain lair, her hours of wandering its seemingly endless halls and rooms, her curiosity and how it drove her further (just as Sombra had suggested), down into the winding halls and chambers of the complex. She told Sombra, with increasingly hot emotions as the story grew darker, of her entrance into the sinister-looking laboratory, of the terror that consumed her as she met the freaks grown in petri dishes, and the near-egomaniacal ambitions of the ruthless doctor and the grandiloquent man who covered himself in shadows.

The Mexican hacker was barely able to keep her joy contained. _This is perfect! I couldn't have made this go any better if I tried_.

She reached over and offered a comforting embrace to Satya, who slowly accepted it through bloodshot eyes and a wavering tone in her voice that combined frustration with fear. Internally though, she couldn't help but muse over how fantastic everything over the past week had gone. From the moment the plan had sprung into her head and she had taken the first steps to seeing it through, every piece had fallen into place exactly as they should have. Sanjay's endless, mindless quest for a larger share made him easy to hack yet again, but Satya had been a piece she wasn't entirely sure on.

She had known that the Vishkar architect was extremely capable, but also rigid. Whether it was true rigidity or just someone who thought they were, who could be molded like a piece of clay if they just believed they were in control. It had been a gamble hoping Satya could be made into that person, but if there was one thing her and Doomfist saw eye to eye on, it was that there was no such thing as luck. Her successes had always come from her skills and her intelligence, nowhere else. It was why she had spent so much time over the years perfecting her craft, and why she had been able to work with minimal suspicion. Now, with the opening stages out of the way, it was time to take the next step and get that much closer to winning the Dangerous Game.

Satya's breathing slowed and deepened as she gently peeled her friend's arms off and massaged her eyelids. "Moira said that she knew Sanjay."

"In case you forgot, we work pretty closely with Vishkar." Sombra answered, mildly sarcastic.

"No, she said she knew him from Oasis, and that he had been trying to join the Ministries. That he wanted to contract weapons for them." Her eyes swiveled to look towards her friend with confusion, then her head turned to join them. "This can't be true, can it? It would betray everything that Vishkar, that I, have ever stood for."

When she looked down at her lap and twirled her hair, it provoked a growing sense of dread within Satya. After a minute, she looked back up and finally answered: "There's... something, I should have told you by now."

"What? What is it?"

"There's a reason why she said that." She took a pause to sigh heavily. "I wanted to be your friend because I needed one. There's something I've found, something terribly wrong with both Vishkar and my company. It goes deep, deeper than you could imagine, and they have the power to do whatever they want, and the lack of morals to see it through."

Satya glared back, genuinely angry at her friend since their first meeting. "How? This can't be possible; I've never seen anything that would make me think that's true!"

"Well _perdona_ _amiga_ , but it is." She raised a hand in front of Satya's face and projected the image of an eye, with dotted markings along the top and bottom. From it, out sprang names of people, companies, and organizations, first a few at a time, before it grew into the tens, and then the hundreds until Sombra had to float the projection out into the middle of the room so it could all fit.

"I told you it goes deep." With the wave of her hand as Satya watched on, she magnified several names and images, the last of which was held as such for some time, a picture of a red-eyed, grey and black-framed Omnic in a dark business suit. "I've been trying to get to the bottom of it for years. The problem is, I'm just one person." From the picture, branches just like those on the rest of the web traced outward, connecting to several major corporations and well-respected figures from many powerful fields. "They, on the other hand, are powerful, ruthless, chaotic, and literally everywhere."

She paused for effect, looking back at Satya and seeing that she was glued to the story before continuing. "That few moments where I was speaking with the Junkers before they took off? I was trying to get them to help me as well, but they just took the money and ran."

Satya continued to look on in shock, words failing her.

"I know, right? It's got to be crazy if I'd go to _them_ for help, but-"

"Are they involved?"

Sombra's train of thought was cut off. " _Perdon_?"

"You said this, this... conspiracy, involves Vishkar and your company. Do the people I met today know they are a part of it?"

Sombra thought long and hard on her answer. Up until now, her promise to tell Satya only the truth had been upheld, but if she continued to, she feared that she could push her too far, too forcefully. She would let Satya know that she was thigh-deep in a conspiracy, and scare her into wanting out before the end goal had been achieved. Alternatively, Satya could just see through a lie and shatter the trust that they had built. Either way, it was another gamble, but she could still rely on herself to tip the scales in her favour.

She breathed in and went with what she saw as the best answer. "No, I don't believe so." _A half-truth, close enough._ "They're being manipulated, puppets of whoever's behind that eye symbol."

"What about Sanjay?"

Another pause followed, but shorter. "No. He's a puppet as well." _The first lie. It won't be the last._

Satya slowly exhaled and let herself fall back onto the couch, her nagging fears quelled for now. Sombra, meanwhile, watched as the hologram of her web dissolved into pixels and floated back into her glowing hand. Her attention was caught when her friend spoke up again.

"How can I help?"

Sombra looked over her shoulder and cocked her head slightly to one side.

"You said you needed a friend, didn't you? I know how to find information on people; I could help you track down whoever's behind this all and put a stop to them."

For a moment, Sombra appeared flattered. A tear almost formed in the corner of her eye before she wiped it away. "You have no idea how much that means to me, but no. Truth is," she whispered as she leaned in closer. "I can't lose you. Most of the friends I make end up on that web, and a lot of them die because I got them involved in the _Juego Peligroso_."

Satya looked back with a confused expression before her friend gave a translation.

"The Dangerous Game. That's what they called it, the people who tried to peek at the man behind the curtain before me." Sombra briefly stopped to breathe in deeply and shut her eyes tightly, keeping her emotions stifled. As she opened them back up, she placed her hand on the sofa between her and Satya. "Whoever's behind that eye is the most dangerous person on Earth. You're good, but they're better, and I don't want to see the only true friend I've ever had end up like..." She choked on her last words as the feelings she'd been holding back now flowed forth uninhibited.

She looked up through her tears when she felt Satya's hand placed on hers. "They may be better than me, but they're not better than us." she said resolutely.

A touched smile crept across Sombra's face as she picked up her friend's hand and held it tightly. "You sure about that?"

"As sure as the sun rises and sets every day."

Sombra's smile faded away, replaced by hard experience. "Let me tell you a story." she said, gently putting Satya's hand back down on the couch, their fingers unlocking and slipping apart. Sombra sighed and brushed a few locks of hair away from her implants before staring intently into Satya's eyes, making sure everything she said would be caught clear as day.

"I was eighteen, a young, _estupido_ kid named Olivia Colomar who thought she knew it all. I had it pretty good; I'd grown up on my own after Mami and Papi bit the dust in the Crisis, so I learned self-reliance pretty quickly. I had my own place and I'd gotten myself a job I liked; Flexible hours, long-term clients."

"What did you do?" Satya asked, already engrossed in the narrative.

 _Nothing wrong with another half-truth_. "I ran a service. You see, in the circles I grew up in, secrets were the currency of choice. Of course, some people like to keep these to themselves, and that's where I came in. If some corporate giant or bigwig politician didn't want their secrets on the open market, they and I would strike a deal and I'd make their problems... not be."

"An enforcer then."

" _Nada_. A friend. I also brokered secrets for clients who wanted them bad enough. All in all, it wasn't much different from what you did in Rio, except it was all from behind a computer screen."

"What happened?"

Sombra smirked. "I hadn't been anyone special, really. There were a hundred thousand kids just like me, but the one thing that set me apart nearly killed me." She let out a long exhale and blinked rapidly as she briefly looked away, composing herself. "Rumor had it that there was someone who knew every dirty little secret imaginable, but no one knew who the hell it was. It was a treasure hunt, a game that no one had ever survived. But I wanted to prove to everyone that I was different, that I was special, that I could trade in secrets better than anyone else. So I, a kid who like an idiot believed they were untouchable, set out to win. I spent months following every lead I had and calling in every favour I could until it happened; I found the center of it all. Problem was, they found me too."

With Satya still hanging on her every word, she continued. "From there, everything happened so quickly. My screen lit up with the eye I showed you for an instant, then everything went black. For for about two hours I thought I'd gotten away unscathed, but then I heard gunshots outside. I peered through the window and saw a hundred well-armed men marching through my neighbourhood, mowing down everyone they saw and burning every house to the ground, and each one of them wore that eye on their shoulder. I bolted for the back exit, fearing for my life, but as I opened the door, I saw something I don't think I'll ever forget."

At this point, she shuffled closer to Satya until their shoulders were almost touching and Satya could see every subtle expression on her friend's face in close detail.

"Clinging to the doorknob outside was an old friend, a baker with a wife and baby girl who had helped me out a lot when I was a kid. I tried to go around him, but I stepped in the puddle of blood that was pouring out onto the ground. I was just about to put it behind me when I heard him croak out his last words." She paused for effect to insure that no poignancy was lost. "' _Please. Keep them safe_.'"

Satya sat motionless, slack-jawed and wide-eyed in horror as the story sank in. "Did they live?" she finally managed to put together to break her speechlessness.

"Yes, but only just. The hit squad broke in just after I'd left. When they couldn't find any sign of me, they burned down the building and every other one in the neighbourhood, leaving me with nothing but the clothes on my back and the blood on my hands." She brushed away a strand of hair that had fallen out of place as she hung her head low. "Now do you understand why?"

"...Yes. I do." Satya whispered slowly.

Sombra wiped away the purple eyeshadow that had smeared from her tears and placed her hand on her friend's shoulder, a thankful smile forming.

"So, what should I do then?" Satya chimed up.

"For now, nothing. They shouldn't know anything about this chat, so just keep up what you've been doing recently and pretend this never happened. Even so, you're still in danger. Keep your guard up and trust your instincts." Sombra gripped her shoulder tightly. "Can you promise me that? Please?"

With such huge revelations having come so quickly, Satya was on the verge of being overwhelmed. She wanted to process everything while sipping the last of her tea, but evidently this was too long a wait for her friend.

"Please?!"

"Yes!" she blurted out. "I... will follow my instincts."

Sombra sighed with relief before rising off the sofa. "Well, I think this went pretty good. I'll be on my way then." she said as she stretched her arms and back, getting the blood flowing again.

"Yes, I believe this was quite a productive day, but I need some rest now."

" _Buena idea_. If my boss says he's going to put you to work, he means it." she chuckled.

Before Sombra could turn around and depixelate away, Satya spoke up one last time. "Are you sure everything will turn out alright?"

Sombra leaned over, reaching for the teapot on the coffee table and pouring her friend a fresh cup. "I guarantee it."

As she resumed her departure and left Satya to rest and recover, a final thought amused her, a quote from Moira's favourite play that seemed to fit the moment perfectly.

 _And thus I clothe my naked villainy_

 _With old, odd ends stolen out of holy writ_

 _And seem a saint when most I play the devil._


	14. Chapter 14: The New Usual

As Satya prepared her morning dances, she smiled in pleasant surprise.

Sombra had been right when she said that her boss intended on keeping Satya busy. Every day for the past two months brought a change, some new assignment that took her to another corner of the globe, brought her into contact with more unfamiliar faces, and kept her busy with a myriad of tasks. Most of it was along the same lines as what she did in Rio, but while dredging up blackmail on a former World Security Council representative, corporate espionage on behalf of a Venezuelan oil tycoon, and stealing a prototype hard-light construction device to send to a demonstration in Oasis were more notable for their rapid succession of each other than anything, what had truly been remarkable was how it had all been able to fit in with her routine. Every morning started out just as they had in Rio; dances, breakfast, time to make herself look as elegant and capable as she felt, everything she was used to. The new usual was busy, but comfortable.

Even more remarkable still was a new addition to her routine. Future excursions with Sombra, held a few times a week, were much less risky than the bar in Mexico. Over time, Satya convinced her occasionally hedonistic friend to take in, of all places, an art gallery with her, while Sombra talked her reserved and uptight plus one into a few situations that she wouldn't have dreamed of before now.

As she carried out her graceful steps across the floor, her mind drifted back to the night before. Sombra had found a nightclub in Amsterdam that was apparently highly recommended; Satya, having gotten used to her newfound tolerance for such places, agreed happily. That night, she'd learned why the city had a reputation for attracting an eccentric crowd, been caught in an intense cacophony of lights, noise, and writhing bodies on the dance floor, and had had to carry out Sombra, completely inebriated and smelling atrociously earthy, as she babbled incoherently. Almost any other time it would have been an experience remembered frightfully, but on the floor with her friend next to her, she felt like she was in the eye of the storm, with the steps she took tracing the boundary between her and chaos.

That was the trick, she'd learned these past two months. If she could surround herself with order, no amount of chaos could overcome her. If Sombra's choice of venue ever proved too far out of the comfort zone, dancing was the trusted fallback.

Satya had learned very young that in a world where change could happen as quick as someone could snap their fingers, a constant was needed in her life, something she could cling to no matter what the ebbs and flows of a chaotic megacity or the myriad missions of her job sent her way. Dancing fit the bill perfectly. It made everything make sense. The world became predictable, ordered, and easy to control, which was why she practiced it with such passion. It had gotten her through the Academy's stresses, the favela incident, and she had faith that it could get her through anything short of Hell itself, especially with Sombra at her side. Dancing was her origin point, the solid, unwavering rock upon which her foundations were set though the waves crashed all around her.

But given the right amounts of pressure and time, any rock can be worn away.

With the sweet smell of breakfast still wafting through her apartment and her morning dances now complete, the next part of the new usual's routine was to check her phone and receive her latest assignment before hopping into the shower. As always, there was a message waiting:

* * *

 ** _Hola mi amiga,_**

 **Got good news and some bad news for you this time. Which do you want to hear first? Oh yeah, right, you can't reply to this. (Note to self: cut back on the weed next time I'm in Amsterdam or stupid _mierda_ like this happens.)**

 **Anyways, the bad news is that I'm going to have to rain-check Friday night in Bangkok. In fact, I'm going to have to rain-check all the dates we planned for the next little while; _el jefe's_ got me on a new assignment that's long as hell and more boring than that art gallery. **

**The good news is that I've got your next couple of assignments attached here. The one for today's open, but the other's on a timer for tomorrow. If you need anything, you know how to get in touch.**

 **Love,**

 **Sombra.**

 **P.S. Remember what I said a couple months back about being curious? Keep it up and I promise you we'll head out as soon as I get back.**

* * *

The emotions that confronted Satya proved hard to sort out and process as she made her way upstairs to the shower. No sooner had she gotten back to the same level of familiarity she'd had with the routine in Rio when things were changed up again. Her first impulse was anger, followed by the tinge of fear that so often accompanies uncertainty about the future.

But no, she concluded. She couldn't allow herself to feel this way. There was nothing she could do about it, and to let herself stew in her emotions was to invite their bedfellow chaos. The inherent irony would have just been excessive.

Putting it out of her mind, she opened up the link with the details for the day's mission. The mission was simple enough; Meet up with one of Sombra's unnamed associates at the Casino de Monte-Carlo in Monaco and discuss a job they needed her to do. It was nothing she hadn't done dozens of times before, and this one seemed almost too easy.

As she looked over the file and gathered more details for the job, a picture caught her eye for an instant before vanishing offscreen as the file scrolled down. She almost thought nothing of it, but something about the familiar quality of the image's details piqued her curiosity. Perusing back up the file until she found it, it soon became clear why.

It was familiar, but in the worst way: A gun-metal gray Omnic with narrow, glowing red optics and wearing a black three-piece suit, listed as the casino's owner. Satya's eyes shot wide open and her heart skipped a beat as memory served her. _Sombra's web_ , she recalled. _He's a part of the Conspiracy._

Further reading divulged more unsettling details: His name was Maximilien, and his public record was fraught with controversy. For the better part of two decades, the Omnic who had once shaken tiny Monaco to its core by purchasing its most famous building had been caught in a swirl of rumours about smuggling, arms deals, money laundering, organized criminal loan sharking, and financing virtually every act of international terrorism since the Crisis had ended. Nothing had ever been proven, but each new accusation only whipped up the flames of old ones. The old Overwatch had even gotten involved once in a public incident in Havana, but again he'd been allowed to walk free.

Satya grasped her upper arm to smooth out the goosebumps she'd gotten and to both figuratively and literally get a grip. _It's just someone I'll remember to_ _avoid,_ she told herself, smirking as she flicked the picture out of sight. _I can't worry myself about things that have no bearing_.

By this point, she'd reached and readied the shower for the next part of her routine. Having read and memorized what was important about the assignment, she refocused herself on what was important as she set her phone aside for the time.

 _Order through peace, peace through calm, calm through order_.

* * *

She rolled her eyes in annoyance as she stepped out of the limo in front of the casino. She'd mastered hard-light manipulation to the point where she could create a city block in the blink of an eye, and yet she couldn't keep the sleeves of her modest blue cocktail dress from riding up and bunching into ugly wrinkles. Even fighting armed guards in thigh-high heeled boots was less bothersome; at least it was something she was familiar with.

Still, she knew, this problem was trivial. There were bigger things on hand tonight.

Normally she would have simply conjured a teleporter to take her right to where she was now in an instant, but the file had stated that the casino was being watched. Though the meeting was clandestine, there was someone pursuing the contact, and a woman appearing out of nowhere would have drawn the kind of attention that would have set them on guard. For a moment she found herself appreciating this method. Simply appearing at the doorstep wouldn't have let her take in the scene.

The far-off crack of fireworks came from above, alighting the night sky in a thousand shimmering colours that made up for the lack of stars. Behind and to her sides, a strange but typical mixture of the sharply-dressed global elite and wild-eyed thrill-seekers, chasing a lucky dice roll or hot slot machine, entered the same way she did. How they came back out, she noticed, was often very different.

In front was the most magnificent spectacle of them all: The casino itself. The smooth finish of the facade, the artistic expression of the rusted green sculptures that overlooked the patrons, and the recent refurbishments that had given modern flairs to the classic style warmly touched her architectural sensibilities and eased the mildly uncomfortable tightness in her chest.

As she made her way up the small flight of steps and through the doorway, she was met by a flurry of activity. At every table the clatter of dice and rolling wheels brought out the best and worst of people in equal measure, the jubilation of victory and frustration of defeat just as likely to be loudly proclaimed as to simply streak across a person's face for an instant before being left to stew underneath steely eyes and unreadable looks. At the slot machines, flashing lights and piercing bells hypnotized players into dumping just one more coin down their thin, ravenous maws. In another corner, a bar provided sad solace with one drink, courage with another, and heightened celebration with another still. Satya chuckled quietly as the novel image of Sombra at the bar, testing their stock of tequila's quality compared to her old haunt, crossed her mind. When the moment passed, what was left was silent gratitude.

There had been a time not too long ago when even this environment would have pushed Satya's limits, the light and sound and simple collection of so many people threatening to overwhelm her. But that was then, she knew. Before she'd met Sombra. Because of her friend, Satya actually found herself enjoying this environment. Gambling was inherently chaotic, but in a well-run place such as this it was controlled. Here, chaos was bound on a tight leash so that if any person succumbed to it, they would have nobody but themselves to blame.

As this moment passed too, Satya breathed in deeply and mentally reminded herself why she was here. There was still much to do, and if the clock on the wall was correct it was almost time.

She picked up her pace to where she was stepping in time to the beat of the jazzy tune that played gently over the loudspeakers. Her instructions once inside the casino were direct. First, she'd go to the table playing Texas hold 'em in the back right corner of the main room and buy in. The contact would show up not long after and greet her with a nondescript code phrase, to which she would reply similarly. A meeting like this was too common to make her nervous, so all she reminded herself to worry about was that her French was up to snuff.

" _Bonjour_ _mademoiselle_." the Omnic overseeing the table said upon Satya's arrival. "Care to join us? The buy-in is ten million euros."

With the wave of her hand, Satya produced a black plastic card from thin air and handed it to the dealer. " _Bien sur._ "

A blinking blue ray of light projected out from the Omnic's eye, analyzing the card. It had been another attachment to the file, one that granted her special permission to use money from a designated hard-light account. This was the first time she'd ever used a direct-line Vishkar account, but she had known of their existence ever since the company had won a lucrative contract just under five years ago to redesign the aging landmark resorts on the Las Vegas strip. Around that time, some damn fool on the architecture team had walked into a casino, lost a fortune, and then stolen it back from the casino's coffers as they left. The cards had been in circulation ever since as a method of accountability, and were kept purposefully rare to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands.

With a cricket-chirp of approval, the Omnic handed the card back over and provided everyone at the table with first their chips and then their cards. Satya eyed the others closely: A baby-faced American with a patchy mustache and a funny look that made it seem like this was the first thing he'd ever done without parental approval; A sultry Chinese woman in a deep v-necked gown and real furs draped over her shoulders, a foot-long cigarette holder dangling from one hand and a pudgy, smitten husband twice her age from the other; A nondescript man in a three piece suit with the most eerily unassuming face and what Satya could have sworn was a bar code tattooed on the back of his bald head; and an Englishman with short blond hair and a intense, intelligent gaze that didn't even waver as he sipped a vodka martini.

Satya had never gambled before, but she had always been quick to learn and had read enough to know the keys to the game were strategy, discretion, and deception, three traits she was well-versed in using, even if she hoped to not have to tonight.  
She kept a rush of butterflies down as she peered over her shoulder at the clock. The contact was late, and in meetings like these tardiness often meant the worst for both parties. She put her head on a swivel; any of the others at the table could have been them, and nothing she saw in the crowd behind them gave her a clue. Likewise, whomever was after this person was still out there, maybe even watching her right now.

"Something wrong, _mademoiselle?_ " the dealer asked.

The question broke Satya out of her anxious thoughts. She looked around again, this time seeing she hadn't even taken a seat yet and that the other players were all staring at her with varying degrees of impatience. With her head cooled, she quickly realized there was only one smart option.

"Um, _non_ , no. It's nothing." she answered decisively as she took her seat.

Another deep breath re-centered herself and provided a fresh confidence boost as the cards were dealt. With any luck, her wait wouldn't be long and the contact would find her before anyone else could.

The opening bets had just been made when she was proven right.

The voice that slunk up behind her had the synthetic quality of an Omnic's, hinted with an oily whisper. "If luck be a lady tonight," he purred in flawless French as he wrapped his arm around Satya's. "perhaps I can buy her a drink?"

 _The code phrase!_ She suppressed a sigh of relief. Things were going the way it was supposed to again.

It was a feeling that shattered like glass as soon as she turned around.

The details she remembered from that morning were now right in front of her face. The black attire, the gleaming grey metal, the narrow, glowing red optics, all no more than two feet away and looking directly at her.

It was _him_.


	15. Chapter 15: So Can I

Satya's heart skipped a beat and her throat tightened like a knot, magnifying her sudden, extreme desire to be anywhere but where she was, with anyone but the Omnic now pulling up a seat next to her. It was a miracle, all things considered, that she didn't flinch.

 _This isn't right_ , she thought, desperately pushing back against a torrent of panic. _It can't be!_

And yet, as her terribly perfect eyesight confirmed, it was. Maximilien, the one living thing in the casino she'd actively wanted to avoid that night, had instead come to her, and was ready with whatever dark intent a member of Sombra's enemies The Conspiracy had prepared for those who crossed their path. Worse still was that this puppeteer of chaos and destruction had thrown out the slimy-voiced insinuation that he was her contact, or at the least he'd learned of her meeting and was weaseling his way into it.

She somehow managed to keep her face blank as more frightened questions blistered through her mind at a breakneck pace; How did he know she'd be here? How did he know the secret codephrase? If he was the contact, why didn't Sombra tell her?!

"It's your turn, _mademoiselle_."

The sudden, soft voice of the dealer was what made her flinch as she opened her eyes. The rest of the table didn't seem to have diverted any attention in the few seconds that had passed, but Maximilien was still patiently standing right next to her, his thin, crimson optics burning into her soul.  
She quickly peeled her cards up to look at them and gave the dealer a mild, playful giggle, hoping it would be enough to mask her swirling vortex of anxiety. As she pushed them to the middle of the table, though, she noticed that the hand she'd raised off her lap to do so was trembling enough to make a light tapping on the soft green felt.

"Begging your pardon, but do you fold or check?" the dealer asked.

By now the Englishman and the bald man had become curious, both taking their gazes off the cards in order to view the scene. Satya noticed them as well and in an instant pulled back her hand as though it had been snakebitten.  
"Fold." she squeaked.

As the table returned to its business, she mentally scolded herself for letting things get this far out of hand. She'd let chaos take root because of one simple missed detail and now she felt physically sick from embarrassment and her cover might have been blown, for all she knew. _What would Sombra think?_ , she worried. Wasn't the entire point of their nights out, she thought, to get her used to the unexpected, so that she wouldn't panic whenever something unforeseen happened? She forced herself to think rationally, repeating her mantra over and over again until her throat loosened enough for her to breathe again. There was only one way to find out if her mission was a bust, she knew, and it was to play along and trust in herself and her friend.

"Perhaps I'll even stretch to two," she finally answered, trying to remember her French while sounding casual and maintaining what she hesitated to call eye contact. "depending on how the next hand goes. Luck, after all, is a fickle mistress."

The servomotors in Maximilien's hand whirred quietly as he cupped his pointed chin and leaned forward, planting his elbow on where a human's thigh would be as he regarded Satya from head to toe. Satya could feel her hand attempting to break free of her control, but she gritted her teeth behind her lips as she forced herself to stay calm.

After a five second pause that felt like a lifetime, Maximilien reclined back on his chair and cocked his head to one side before, all of a sudden, breaking into a quiet but hearty chuckle. Puzzled, Satya smiled back, her brow furrowing as she tried to make sense of his reaction.

"Did I say something funny?" she finally asked.

The Omnic's laugh subsided as he dropped his hand down to his waist and rolled his shoulder into a more open position. "Oh, it's nothing." he replied in his slick tone. "Simply that while you're doing an admirable job of hiding it, you should know that an Omnic, more than most, can tell when a woman is afraid and pretending not to be. I assure you, there's nothing to fear; I'm who Sombra sent you to meet, _madamoiselle_ Vaswani." He reached for her hand and held it delicately before kissing it with cold, nonexistent lips. "Maximilien, at your service."

The sweeping relief Satya should have felt was almost entirely countermanded by another wave of embarrassment. Her eyes darted down towards the floor, back at the Omnic, and back down at the floor inbetween a few swift blinks; Of all the things she was a stickler for, professionalism was chief among them, and as such she held herself to its highest standard. Now she only hoped that he couldn't tell that she was blushing.

"Is there a problem?"

His sudden, innocuous question caught Satya off guard. She gave him a look that told him she had no idea what he was referring to, to which he gestured at her absent-mindedly fiddling with the bunched-up sleeves of her dress again.  
"It's nothing, really." she assured, putting on a deflecting smile. "It's just that these sleeves can be a little... annoying." She applied a transparent hard-light layer on the sleeves as she pulled them down, only to exhale sharply when the material wrinkled as the layer was repealed. In her frustration and continual attempts, she didn't notice Maximilien slowly reach in until he'd grabbed a hold of her prosthetic arm's wrist. She gasped and repealed it away in mild shock, but the Omnic refused to let go.

"Like I said," he reassured, his dulcet voice surprisingly calming. "there's nothing to fear."

A quick look to his left beckoned Satya to do the same, to which she saw that the American kid was grinding his teeth in anticipation of the final card reveal in his showdown with the Chinese heiress, who seemed more interested in getting her trophy husband to stop clinging to her arm like an insect to a tree branch. Clearly, there was time to spare, and he was offering a tantalizing solution to her inconvenience. Simultaneously, an Omnic in a tight black dress placed a small glass of tequila between the two, offering Satya the compliments of the house before she walked away.  
 _This can't be a coincidence_ , she thought, but the inquiring look she sent was only met with seeming innocence. Gnawing uncertainty returned to her mind with chaotic intent, and again she felt like she had every right to it.

And yet, even then, she felt at ease.

The faintest, strangest scent wafted through the air, one that she traced back down to the glass of dark brown liquid that her best friend was so fond of. The pungent smell made a revelation click in her mind, one that settled the stirring in her chest and warmed the chill running down her spine: _If Sombra can do it, so can I_.

She didn't resist when his other hand crawled up her organic arm, even as the icy cold of his metallic touch made the hairs on her neck shoot upward and the air in her lungs feel like it was about to freeze. She watched as his dexterous fingers gently smoothed over each crease, and how he drew in so close he was almost kissing her arm so he could manipulate the soft, delicate fabric with ease.

"Your French is excellent, by the way." he purred.

Satya was almost flattered. "Really?"

"Without a doubt. Your accent is a little stiff and your pronoun usage betrays your lack of experience, but otherwise a very solid effort. Certainly better than what can be said for any other Vishkar employee I've known."

She almost began laughing out of flattered joy, but suppressed it. She felt like she was looking at a living paradox: How could someone who'd be considered the villain in anyone's story have such a gentle touch? In an odd way, she found it almost comforting.

Even so, she quickly realized, there was a reason why her first impression was what she got.

He traced a finger up along her sleeve until it reached her open shoulder, making gentle, sensual circles before running through her silky ebony hair that draped over them. "You look exquisite, my darling." he whispered, letting the full effect of his slick tones play out.

A short, quick shake of her head flicked her hair like a whip, catching him in the face and making it so that he was now the one that flinched. Any thought on his part of another attempt was shut down by a glaring side-eye look, trained on him like a sentry ready to sound the alarm at a moment's notice. Inwardly though, she savoured a small victory, telling herself she'd made up for her earlier professional lapse.

The Omnic smirked, clearly impressed, before returning to his work. A few seconds later he sat back upright in his chair, waiting proudly for Satya to examine it. To his expectation and her surprise, the sleeves were perfectly straight, and she found herself raising an eyebrow and a corner of her mouth to indicate so.

"Thank you." she said. "Now, I was told you had a mission for me?"

Even though his face couldn't move, the Omnic looked at her as though he were wearing a clever, anticipatory smile. "I do," he said, rubbing the thumb of his one hand along the palm as he did. "but the next hand has been dealt, and it's bad luck to leave while you're still in the game."

Sure enough, by the time Satya had turned her attention back to the table, her two cards had slid to a halt right in front of her. The young American was beaming ear to ear, nearly bouncing in his seat with excitement as he counted up his considerably larger stack of chips. Likewise, the Chinese heiress wrapped a fur around her neck and frowned as her gaze was shared between her own diminished chip count and the cards the dealer had sent her way. The Englishman and the bald man, as usual, kept to themselves, not letting on whatever was being calculated in their sharp minds.

"Are you sure?" she inquired as the rest of the table made their opening bets.

"We have time. Besides, you never know if you might come away with something."

This time, as she turned back towards her cards, she gave her nerves no chance to fray. Mentally repeating her phrase as though it was her new mantra, she picked up her tequila glass, taking in its aroma as she regarded it as though the drink could have been poisoned. Soon enough, though, she found herself sneering at her own apprehension.

"If Sombra can do it," she whispered to herself. "so can I."

With that, she tilted the glass up and took her first sip. Even with the water melted off the ice cube in the glass diluting its potency, the first few drops were a powerful sensation on her tongue. She fought down an instinctive urge to gag, forcing herself to let it slide down her throat. To her pleasant surprise, the strength of the first taste gave way quickly to a smooth, creamy flavour that made her feel strangely warm inside.  
 _Is that why Sombra likes this so much?_ , she wondered. It certainly was a far cry from the rapid-onset buzz and hacking coughs of whenever her friend downed a shot. Of course, she knew she wasn't an expert on alcohol, but she wasn't about to complain, not when that warm feeling began stirring a rush of confidence like leaves in a gust of wind.

She peeled her cards up and held them close, careful to make sure that none of the others could get an idea of what she had. A smile found its way naturally across her face for the first time since she'd sat down; It looked like she had a hand that Sombra would love to buy herself into, and the fact that she herself was in it brought her a swell of pride.

After all, if Sombra could do it, so could she.


	16. Chapter 16: All In

For someone who'd never played poker before, she rather enjoyed it.

The game progressed at a steady pace, meaning that it wasn't long before the players began to show their true colours. Emboldened by his earlier victory, the American kid's bets became substantially larger, and on many occasions he opened the first round of betting by going all-in. More often than not, however, all he ended up doing was dissuading the rest of the table from joining in, and all he achieved was stealing the blinds. If that didn't happen, the near-invariable alternative was that someone would call his bluff and take the pot for themselves. Even so, the beaming grin that stretched across his face wasn't at all dampened. Satya knew the look; He was having the time of his life.

By contrast, the heiress seemed to become more and more incensed with each fresh hand. The next three times the American made a big move, she attempted to instigate a betting war to rob him of everything he had, only to have the turn card shoot down the hand she was preparing, leaving her hissing through her teeth in anger. Within fifteen minutes she'd shed her furs and was slouching over the table, her cigarette long since burnt down to nothing and her shoulders up like a tiger readying to pounce, while her oversized trophy husband rubbed her shoulders. Satya regarded the woman's lengthening scowl until she shot a glare back, to which Satya's eyes swiftly returned to her own cards. Even then, she noticed, if she herself wasn't eyeing them, Maximilien was.

The rest of the table was harder to get a read on. Whenever Satya looked at them their eyes were locked onto their cards, but when she wasn't she couldn't help but feel like she was being watched. The two of them kept extremely good game faces, but even so she soon found out that their playing styles spoke their own volumes. The nondescript man played a precise and calculating game, making exact bets like clockwork at certain points as though they were outlined on a spreadsheet. He was able to steal a few pots that way, but something about how icy he kept himself told Satya that winning the game wasn't his primary interest.

The Englishman, meanwhile, was cunning and cocky, often taking a sip from his martini before making a daring move that was equally likely to be legitimate as it was a bluff. He also seemed to watch the table like a hawk, finding even the most subtle actions and using them to his own ends. Satya had feared the worst when an innocuous fluttering of her eyelids cost her a bluff that would have put him out of the game, but Maximilien's untroubled expression was a welcome boost to her confidence. If anything, the Omnic was even more intrigued with what he'd done. Clearly, whoever this man was, he had experience.

As the minutes ticked away and the one-hour mark approached, the table seemed to be in a deadlock. Even after all this time the chips spread around the table were still relatively even, and Satya found herself getting nervous as a result.

She leaned in towards Maximilien during a short break, one that he'd insisted on remaining at the table for. "I didn't know this game could last so long." she whispered. "Are you sure we shouldn't leave?"

"Don't worry." he answered assuredly. "Unless I miss my mark, we'll be done here soon. You aren't worried that your luck is running out, are you?"

"I don't believe in luck." Satya replied. It was a simple truth: She'd never had a reason to trust in chance, and as far as she was concerned she never would.

What she was less certain about, though, was what to think of her associate's prediction. He hadn't been wrong yet tonight, but just because she was no longer scared of him didn't mean that there wasn't still an air of uneasiness that almost made her squirm in her chair.

Just then, the dealer spoke up. " _M_ _adames et monsieurs_ , please return to your seats. The next hand is being dealt."

The cards slid across the soft green felt as the table's occupants prepared themselves. The American eagerly looked over his cards and counted his chips; The heiress planted a kiss on her sycophant's cheek before sending him off to the bar; The blank-faced man, as per usual, did nothing; and the Englishman finished the last sip of his martini before studying his hand.

Satya turned back towards her hand, lifting the cards up carefully and holding them close to her chest. A seven and eight of spades: A decent hand, with two of the same suit even if it probably wasn't going to bring her victory. She suppressed a deep breath; As much as she hoped at that moment to not be playing, she knew she wouldn't have let herself leave without any closure. Even before being taught the value of closure at the Vishkar Academy she'd always wanted to see things through to the end. Sometimes, the desire to see things through to the very end even bordered on compulsion. Chains of events without an ending were chaotic and so they needed to be avoided, simple as that.

She lifted her cards and obscured them with her palm; A seven and eight of spades, not a bad hand but not a great one either, and not one that she'd typically take far. She eyed the clock on the wall again, noting that one full hour had passed.

A gnawing concern in her heart swelled up, one that she knew could only be satiated one way. _Very well then,_ she thought to herself about the Omnic. _Let's see if you're right._

"The blinds are now set at four hundred thousand and eight hundred thousand euros." the dealer said. "Once _Monsieur_ Thomas and _Madame_ Lei post them, we will begin."

The American and the heiress, both to the dealer's left, exchanged glances as they set the next hand in motion with their offerings. He raised his eyebrows haughtily and leaned back in his chair as his share was given, while she pushed her chips in with a little more gusto than possibly intended, toppling their organized columns and scattering them around the pot. Satya gripped her cards a little tighter upon seeing this before she put her cards down and placed her organic hand on her lap.

The first bets began: The Englishman was first up, and the glint in his eyes seemed to mean that he was planning something. The sizable stack of chips he pushed into the middle confirmed it.

"Bet, two million." the dealer stated.

Satya was next. She glanced over at her acquaintance, who seemed to be more interested in the clock than anything else. In her lap, one hand slid across her dress' fabric as she gently tapped the other on the table's edge.

"Check." the dealer proclaimed.

 _The flop cards haven't been shown yet_ , she reasoned to herself. _Best to play cautiously for now_.

The nondescript man maintained a look so steely and intense Satya could have sworn it was made of stone. He placed two fingers on his cards, making them shuffle under the pressure. It was almost a sure thing that he was going to fold.

Three people at the table audibly gasped when he lifted his fingers and did the polar opposite. "All in." he said, sounding as icy as he looked.

The dealer's neck craned back in surprise, though their tone remained cool. "All in. Nine million euros."

The next player flicked out a comb from a pocket on his blazer and ran it across the thin blond excuse for facial hair dotting his upper lip, a tell that Satya had deduced several hands ago as meaning the young Mr. Thomas was feeling particularly ambitious.

His bet, made through a squeaky tenor, reassured her deduction. "All in."

"All in." the dealer repeated. "Eleven million."

Madame Lei's eyebrows curved downward like jack-knives and a sneer crossed her face, baring a few pointed teeth. Without a second's reprieve all of her chips were up for grabs as well. "All in, twelve million." she growled in a smoky alto.

The dealer next presented the flop cards: A six of spades, the king of diamonds, and the six of clubs. Satya felt swell of joy leap into her throat in response to her good fortune.

She wasn't the only one to notice.

"Thirty four million euros in the pot and we've only just seen the flop. Exciting, wouldn't you say?" Maximilien purred.

She didn't look back over at him, not wanting to give the other players anything they could interpret. "Certainly." she replied.

"Then I suppose," the Omnic whispered as he slunk in close and slithered an arm over to her collection. "you prefer to watch, then?" He implicitly flicked a chip off from the top of her tallest stack, sending it rolling until it had circled around and fallen flat in front of her.

With compulsive speed, Satya returned the errant piece back to its exact spot on the miniature tower. "I'm not going to take a needless risk." she whispered, forcing enough conviction over her tongue to make her statement as quiet as it was definitive.

Maximilien simply chuckled in return. "Ah, my darling, that's something we have in common. I know it sounds ironic coming from the owner of a casino, but I don't believe in luck either. Rather, I believe in opportunism and planning. Every move I make is calculated, and I only deal with those who do the same."  
He crept an arm past her shoulders as he talked, playing with her hair where it fell on her shoulders. On her skin, his fingers felt like the frigid points of needles. "Besides," he added. "what have I done for you not to trust me?"

Some part of her conscience wanted to ask ' _aside from being a part of the Conspiracy?_ ', but she knew better than to let that slip out unfiltered. As it died down, the notion that he was right followed in quick succession, a bitter pill to swallow that caused her to droop her head and flutter her eyelids.

"All in."

Even through the general din of her own thoughts and the bustle of the casino, the smooth baritone cut cleanly through it all and brought her to attention like a bugle call would for a soldier. Exchanging the view to her right for the one to her left, she saw the Englishman folding his arms and resting them on the table's edge, but not before he'd stolen a glance over his shoulder at her. Though it only lasted for an instant and he didn't say anything, the sparkle in his eyes betrayed a sense of triumph. Satya didn't initially understand why she was getting what she was from him, but when it dawned on her she ground her teeth behind her clenched lips and inwardly cursed herself for making that mistake twice.

"All in, six million euros." the dealer said, not wasting any time. "It's your turn, _Mademoiselle_."

Maximilien leaned in closer until Satya could feel the coolness of his metal face radiating onto her cheeks. "Opportunity has presented itself." he whispered. "Do you trust me?"

No matter how velvety he sounded, his words still sat in her gut like a bad case of the flu. Everything she was, everything she knew, told her not to trust him. In her lap, her nails scraped along the fabric of her dress as her hand shook like a leaf. Before she could fight it, a swift knock came on the table's edge, spilling a few drops of some sort of liquid that ran uncomfortably down her leg as she repealed her hand in mild pain. When she looked down at the place of impact, she saw what the spilt drops were from.

 _Well that's just perfect_ , she mused sardonically. _Now I've spilled-_

Her hand ceased trembling immediately. With slow hesitancy, she raised it and picked up the tequila glass from earlier. The aroma still wafted off the fine glass, and with the ice long since melted it felt warm to the touch, which itself brought up the pleasant sensation of its taste.

 _No_ , she thought, letting her sense of competition kick in. _I can do_ _this. If she trusts him, so can I._ As though to prove it to herself, she threw back her head and gulped down a mouthful. Before the initial kick had passed, all her chips were in the pot as well.

"All fifty million is on the line _._ " the dealer announced. "We'll begin the showdown with _Monsieur_ Thomas."

The young American gave a smile that stretched the ugly patches of his facial hair apart as he turned over his cards. His kings of hearts seven of diamonds made his main adversary grumble a collection of Mandarin obscenities as she turned over her four and eight of spades. The nondescript man and the Englishman both let off no sense of urgency as their cards, the five and ace of hearts and clubs and the nine and six of diamonds and hearts, respectively, were laid out.

Satya looked over at Maximilien in hopes of getting one last assurance as her turn came up, but he kept her eyes front with a gentle push on her cheek. She took in a deep breath and flipped over her cards, for better or worse.

The dealer's optics darted between the players, all of whom were having varying degrees of success at keeping a staunch game face. Satya noticed this, briefly pondering what had gotten their attention and whether or not to ask about it. She wanted to bring it up with the Omnic's employer, but a gentle tap on his shoulder proved unsuccessful at drawing him away from something that had just popped up on his phone.  
By this point, the wonderful, creamy aftertaste and strange warmth of her glass had set in. _Very well then_ , she thought. _Let's do this._

The dealer didn't bother with long pauses for dramatic effect, but it wasn't as though they needed to; The collective focus at the table was had already reached its boiling point. In a single swift, fluid motion, the turn and river cards were presented.

First came the nine of spades, and then the ten.

"The _mademoiselle_ wins with a straight flush," they declared. "Six through ten of spades. The high hand. _Monsieur_ Thomas has two pair, _Madame_ Lei holds a flush, and the two gentlemen hold a full house and a pair of sixes, respectively."

A myriad of emotions flashed like lightning across Thomas' face, accompanied by the high-pitched whimpers of words that failed to materialize and the unintentional dropping of his comb onto the floor. In just under ten seconds, it all came crashing down like a glass house and he faceplanted onto the table, his shoulders heaving with each ugly sob. In stark but unsurprising contrast, the eerie bald figure looked completely indifferent to the fact that he'd used the worst hand to start the chain of events that had cost him the game. Much more surprising was that if anything, the only feeling that could be gleamed from him as he stood up, said nothing to the Englishman after accidentally spilling his martini with an errant elbow, and disappeared into the casino crowd, was satisfaction.

Madame Lei, meanwhile, sank into her seat, lolling her head back and letting her shoulders and chest droop with eased tension. A sly, triumphant smile curled up one side of her lips as she plucked a cigarette out from a small clutch she'd kept under the table, fiddling for a lighter before accepting the one that the Englishman reached behind the dealer to offer. She sucked in a long puff and blew it out in growing content up through the bangs of her French bob. The Englishman, meanwhile, kept whatever he was thinking hidden away as he straightened his bow tie and flipped a silver coin over to the dealer before heading off in the direction of a nearby baccarat table.

Satya, last of all, slowly surveyed the environment around her and let it all come to her. She found herself in a melting pot of feelings; Every frayed nerve and awkward hesitation blended in with the thrill of victory and the rush of self-confidence and it felt... right. She couldn't pinpoint what exactly it was, be it the adrenaline surge that soothed her competitive nature or something else entirely, but she loved it.

A novel musing crossed her mind that this must been how the man in a story preached by one of the religions she'd studied had felt. In it, the man had been thrown into a lion's den, but by divine providence he had come out unharmed. Under her breath and through a warm smile, she murmured silent gratitude to whatever god was watching over her, keeping her safe and helping her find order and success.

With all the other players seen off or otherwise occupied, the dealer spoke to Satya as her plus one extended a gracious arm for her to hold on, which she politely accepted. "The winnings have been transferred to your account. Enjoy the rest of the night."

Satya didn't stop, but she did look over her shoulder. " _Merci_."

As the two headed off, Maximilien leaned in close again. "Perhaps now I can buy you that drink," he said. "Winning fifty million euros is certainly a good excuse."

She directed a frown his way, to which he replied with an autotuned chuckle.  
"Very well," he conceded. "Let's begin."

The path Maximilien took the two of them on for the next few minutes led around the room's perimeter and past numerous other tables, each hosting their own game and the little dramas that played out as a result. Occasionally, the lion would stop to oversee the progression of the games and speak with the players, but otherwise he was devoted to her.

"I assume the file Sombra gave you said that we're being watched?" he inquired as they circled around a spinning roulette wheel.

"Of course," Satya answered. "And based on how distracted you seemed to be, you believe that they knew about the meeting and its location. You kept me at the game because you wanted to either wait for them to do something, deduce whether or not they were at the table, or both."

Maximilien cocked his head slightly to one side. "Very astute, my darling. Sadly, I wasn't able to discern which one of the four they were, but that's secondary to the thanks that I owe you."

Satya's eyebrows raised quizzically. "For what?"

"Normally, I would have spent this past hour doing rounds between the tables and the back rooms, which would take me through various blind spots where no one would be able to see me. Because of you, I've been able to stay in a single, highly visible location with multiple witnesses. Our observer's goal, for the time being, has been delayed."

"What goal was that?"

Maximilien's crimson eyes held an air of the mundane, which made what he told Satya even more unsettling.

"To kill me."


	17. Chapter 17: A Dance With Death

_How?_

Satya stood like a monolith, her hand cupped over her dropped jaw. The blood from the corpse that had pooled at her feet and that dripped from the spots on her clothes now flowed over the datapad, coating her shoes and legs, as well as herself further as she slid down to a seat on the hard cobblestones, drawing in laboured breaths as she massaged her bruised neck.

 _How is this possible_ , she asked herself, but no logical, thinkable answer came. All that did was a frightened lament of the revelation that felt like it could alter reality itself.

 _How?_

* * *

 _ **Forty-five minutes earlier...**_

"To kill you?"

"Yes," Maximilien purred. "though you needn't sound so shocked. It's a sad truth that Omnics as successful as myself have no shortage of enemies."

Satya kept her posture and face inexpressive, but fiddling with her dress' sleeves when they were still perfectly straight said all it needed to. The Omnic, seeing her struggle to find the right words, led her towards the casino's bar and provided a seat that she obliged. A hand gesture also provided her another glass of tequila, which she acknowledged with with a thankful glance.

"I assume this isn't what you were expecting when you received this assignment", he continued. "Are you sure that you'll be up to the task?"

Satya took her time to collect her thoughts and make sure that everything she said was fully processed before it left her tongue. She'd let her professional conduct slip enough for one night, and if she was going to be doing what she guessed she would, there wasn't going to be room for error. "Yes," she replied assertively. "I'll be fine. I'm just... surprised, that's all."

Maximilien folded his hands together like the steeple of a church as he regarded her with relaxed pensiveness. "You're wondering who would want me dead."

She purged her preconceptions, at least for the moment, with a few quick blinks. "I suppose so."

"Like I said, I have no shortage of enemies. The guilty party who sent tonight's guest, however, is particularly troublesome."

Satya raised an eyebrow. "How so?"

The Omnic unfolded his hands, placing one on his lap and holding up the other on his elbow as he spoke. "One of my more profitable ventures comes through private investments in various large contracts. Some time ago, I loaned our friend a large sum to ensure the completion of a project with exceptional potential. Unfortunately, he's been frivolous with my finances, and now stands on the verge of defaulting. When I asked to see my return he became defensive, and made threats against me."

Satya swiveled her head quizzically while still maintaining eye contact. "Just threats?"

"I wouldn't be so dismissive. He is a duplicitous and desperate sort, especially when he has his own bottom line to lose. This isn't the first time he's given me cause for concern. The only reason why I still do business with him is because he provides connections to his employers and other investments."

She took in a deep breath through her nose and let it circulate, making sure that her head was clear and her nerves were nonexistent. "'Better the devil you know', as it were?"

"Exactly. Still, once you've dealt with the assassin, there is something else I want you to do."

"That being...?"

The Omnic chuckled coldly. "I enjoy your eagerness; It will be useful. I've learned that your target will be carrying a datapad with a direct line of contact to their clients." He leaned in further, his metal fingers leaving wood shavings in their wake as they scraped along the bar. "I want you to leave a message for our friend," he hissed. "so he knows the price of letting good business sour."

Normally, Satya would've found a sense of the uncomfortable in getting involved with personal disputes; All of the work she'd done at Vishkar had been strictly business-oriented. But tonight, a sly smile crept along her face, brought on by months of experience with a well-versed hacker and a newfound appreciation for expanding her comfort zone.

She reached for the glass and held it beside her, swirling the ice cubes around. "Consider it done. You won't be disappointed."

Maximilien pulled back, adopting a satisfied posture as he clasped his hands back together. _"Bonne_ _chance_ , then."

"Luck is disorderly, and as you said earlier, nonexistent." With a single, swift and fluid motion, she tipped the glass up, knocked back a mouthful, and set it back down with a loud clatter. "What you mean is ' _bonne chasse_ '."

* * *

As she waited, she began to dance.

Satya much preferred the feeling of her field attire to any sort of formal wear, be it the conservative but restrictive business suit she wore on Vishkar time, or the dress she had replaced with the literal snap of her fingers. They had their uses, and Satya had never thought she looked ugly or unprofessional in them, but they just didn't give her the same feeling of control that she loved so much.

Normally, such expression was confined to her morning routine, but tonight, she'd reasoned to herself, was a calculated risk. She and Maximilien had silently parted ways after the briefing, leaving her to follow him across the casino as he nonchalantly made his rounds. She circled the floor as well, identifying each of the places where her fellow gamblers from earlier had gone and, with the discreet swish of her hand, conjured miniature cameras that hung from the walls and the chandeliers, tracking their every movement and feeding it into her visor's holo-display. With the suspects covered she left the building, took a hard left, and slunk around the back under cover of darkness to watch everything unfold.

Their actions were mostly mundane. Thomas was mewling to his parents, a crotchety old couple who dismissed him with a cheque and a demeaning hand gesture. Madame Lei had ditched her oblivious sycophant for a bottle of gin and a man half her age wearing a bolo tie, both of which she promptly took into a secluded restroom. Satya pushed the feed aside the moment her alibi became airtight and grimaced with distaste.

The Englishman also circled the floor after swiftly winning his baccarat game, seemingly talking to no one in particular and twice passing by a roulette wheel where a frizzy-haired woman in a golden gown was doing the same thing. Satya suspected he was waiting for something, though nothing about him gave the sense of predatory intent or of trying to hide it. The nondescript man, meanwhile, left the building almost as quickly as Satya herself had and disappeared into the night.

Finally, a camera followed Maximilien himself around, covering those lethal blind spots as he passed through them. He'd been right earlier: There were plenty of opportunities for someone to attack him, but they were all passed on. _Perhaps they've been scared off_ , she thought as a smile returned. _The job might be over before it's even begun. Well done, Satya_.

And so, with the Omnic inspecting a plate of muffins and nothing to do but watch and wait, she danced. A warm, delicious feeling spread within as the stars spun overhead. Life was different, so different she'd have never imagined it, but by gods it was _good_. She'd jumped headfirst into the lion's den and not only come out clean on the other side, but found order in those same unimaginable places. And so, she danced.

Until she was caught in the act.

She'd never been shy, but the shadow moving in the corner of her eye as she twirled around had her diving for a dark corner in an instant. Her photon projector materialized in her hand, making sure she was ready for whatever danger was headed her way.

Only it wasn't danger. Just an average, nondescript electrician.

The sight of denim blue overalls and yellow rubber gloves released the tension that squeezed her ribcage, and that he appeared to take no notice as she watched him pass by brought an undetected sigh of relief.

And yet, as he tipped his ballcap over his face, some inert sense aroused her suspicions, suspicions that opened her eyes wide as saucers when she noticed something on the back of his head.

 _A barcode_.

With hand movements like a cat swiping at thin air, she cycled through her camera feeds until she reached the nondescript man's. Rewinding to the couple minutes before he vanished, as well as her own flawless memory, corroborated everything: The stoic face, the unassuming features, the barcode. _It's him_ , she thought. _He's the assassin!_

She peered around her corner as he turned another. Raising her photon projector to a ready stance, she heard it hum up to a full charge, its light blue glow assuring that she was ready for him before making to pursue as quickly and quietly as she possibly could.

By the time she'd made it to where he'd been, however, he was long gone, presumably in the maze of hedges and fountains that made up the gardens behind the casino. All she saw in front of her, illuminated by a small LED light that pierced the dark's veil, was an open electrical panel.

The briefest of second thoughts surfaced, but the memory of the barcode put it to rest as she approached the panel, her head on a swivel and the weapon she held prepared to fire. The panel was indeed abandoned, but that issue was one she resolved to deal with after her current one. Stuck in the outlet behind the plastic door was a foot-long metal cylinder with a thumb switch at the outside end.

Satya nearly gasped before a sense of triumph prevailed. She'd seen one of the devices before on the news, back when Versailles was the world's leading story. _A targeted remote EMP generator_.

Slowly she raised her projector, activating its lowest setting as tendrils of hard light wrapped around the device, intent on removing it and eliminating the threat. With her free hand, she wiped a bead of sweat off her forehead. Absolute focus was necessary: One false move and the device had the very real possibility of deep-frying every Omnic circuit in the building.

As it turned out, such focus nearly cost Satya her life.

She didn't notice the soft, echoing footsteps on the grass next to the hedgerow, nor even the click of a gun being cocked less than ten feet away. What let her on was when, for the shortest, most random moment, she looked down from her task of defusing and found the errant shadow that the light above betrayed. She froze in place, absolutely still, waiting to see if he would make the first move.

When he closed the distance another step, her question was answered.

In the blink of an eye her projector released its grasp on the device, and with her prosthetic hand she raised a transparent bubble that easily stopped the suppressed bullets he sent downrange from a pair of silver pistols. In the lighting he stood in as she turned around, Satya cursed herself on how she could have written him off, since his sunken eye sockets, ghostly pale skin, and heavy cheekbones made him look like death itself.

Again, her smile returned. _If that's so,_ she thought, _t_ _hen you'll prove I'm up to the task_.

A crackling ball of energy shot out from her projector, which the assassin barely avoided with a combat roll. Before he could renew his offensive, a single powder-blue beam from her own weapon carved up the turf and stone around where he stood, leaving smoldering ruts in its wake. Well-timed dodges allowed him to avoid Satya's assault, but he was still forced to retreat into the maze of hedges after his ball cap was singed off, falling to the ground in an ashen pile.

Satya saw no use in pursuing into the gardens, a place where the twisting footpaths and his obvious mastery of concealment would have set her up to be ambushed. Instead, she decided, if he was going to hide like a rabbit in a hole, she was going to flush him out.

Lowering her bubble, she took a ready stance and grasped at the ball of light that floated in her prosthetic palm with two fingers on that hand. Upon raising her arm as high as she could until she was on her tiptoes, a dazzling display spread across the area, where dozens of fifty-foot lamps grew out of thin air and shone down their light, disintegrating the shadows. Simultaneously, numerous orb-like cameras sprung from the projector before floating off to survey the grounds like hawks searching a field.

The tension in the seconds that followed was thick enough to almost be physically felt in the air. Satya kept her back to the wall, her eyes on a nonstop patrol side to side, and her trigger finger taut, not daring to give away her own position until he'd been coaxed into the light. Trickles of cold sweat dripped down her hair and her heart pounded furiously as she rapidly crossed the vulnerable open ground over to the hedgerow, keeping the panel and its all-important objective in sight. For another quick second, she wondered if he'd been scared off.

Until she heard a faint ring on the ground just three feet to her right.

With reflexive speed she about-faced to the noise and fired a beam, leaving a small crater and the smell of burnt sod to intermingle with the tension. Upon a closer look, Satya seethed when she realized that it had only been a silver coin, now disintegrated except for a portion of the edge. _A false alarm_ , she reasoned.

Until it hit her. _Wait a sec-_

The wire was around her neck before she could move, forcing her windpipe closed as she struggled to break free. Her concentration broken, the lights and cameras dissipated into nothing, leaving the action only witnessed by the stars in the heavens above.

A hard-light collar slipped under the wire to try and force it off, but against his frighteningly inhuman strength it was to no avail. Every frantic kick, elbow, gouge, bite, grab, and hard slam against the building she delivered was done so with all her might, but he refused to yield. Soon each gasp for air she took became shorter than the last, and as streams of blood drained from her neck, nose, and mouth and her vision began to blur, a rush of icy fear gripped her even tighter still. She plumbed her mind for any desperate solution, but all it could pull up was the time two months earlier, in the depths of the mountain estate in Venice.

Until the echo of gunfire pierced her eardrums.

She dropped to the ground like a stone, coughing and wheezing on her hands and knees as the deadly clutch on her throat relaxed. When precious oxygen finally returned to her brain and her sight cleared, she craned her neck upwards at the hitman, still standing but with his arms limp and his face contorted with surprise. In a flash of panic she raised her artificial arm and formed a globe of energy, but another gunshot cracked across the gardens. As he convulsed and finally dropped the garrote, a third shot made impact with his skull right where the barcode was, spraying blood everywhere before he finally collapsed onto the ground with a dull thud.

Just as she did, too.

* * *

Satya couldn't be sure how long she blacked out for, but she didn't suspect it had been too long since when she finally pulled her face up off the bloody stones, the person who'd saved her life was standing overhead, in such a position that the LED on the panel left nothing in the shadow, offering a free hand to help her up.

She obliged as soon as she recognized his black bow tie, short blond hair, and intense, intelligent eyes.

"Thank you," she spluttered as she propped herself up against the wall, waiting for blood to circulate to her legs again.

"Don't mention it," the Englishman replied as he holstered his own pistol before looking down at where their opponent lay. A derisive smirk curled across his pale lips. "He didn't even apologize for spilling my drink."

"Who was he?"

The Englishman raised an eyebrow as he looked first at Satya, then at the corpse. "Well, now that's a story," he said, appearing more impressed as he looked back up at her. "To tell the truth, no one really knows. Rumour has it he was cloned in the former Soviet Union, that he answers to a number rather than a name, and that he works for a private espionage conglomerate specializing in contract killings. All that's for sure is that he's an urban myth in certain circles. You never see him and he never lets his targets escape."

"Then I'm happy to be the first," she quipped back, coercing a laugh that only came out as a wet cough. "I guess you could say I was lucky."

"Lucky and good. If it weren't for you and your light show, he'd have gotten away again."

"Is that why you're here?" she asked while wiping away the blood trailing from her nose. "To kill him?"

"Failing capture, yes," he continued as his tone warmed. "Let's just say that Number Ten owes you a debt of gratitude." He extended his hand again. "As do I."

Again, Satya obliged. "Well, thank you. Just don't expect me to say why I'm here, mister..."

"Fleming," he stated. "Craig Fleming, and don't worry; I wasn't going to ask." His smirk stretched into a smile as he let the handshake go and readjusted his tie. "It's been a pleasure, Miss Vaswani. Until we meet again."

Her lips puckered with surprise that he knew her name, but she was able to grab his shoulder before he could leave. "Wait," she implored.

He rotated in place quickly, showing an inquisitive look.

"Do you know who hired him? This assassin, I mean."

Fleming sent back a look Satya regarded as strange, as though he were sizing her up. "I'm afraid I don't," he said at last. "but in my experience it's always good to know who you're working for."

With that, before anything else could be said, he vanished into the shadows.

Satya didn't waste any time first defusing the EMP and storing it away, then rifling through the hitman's pockets for his datapad. Through both actions, a piece of her mind did dwell on her encounter his last words leaving a sense of confusion suspended in her memory, while the idea that he owed her after he'd saved her life made her snort with amusement. She briefly mulled over whether or not she'd see him again, but settled on the hope that she'd never need him to pay off his debt.

At last, her hands locked onto the object of her search, which she swiftly pulled out. The see-through, tablet-sized object was no match for the hacking know-how Sombra had graciously offered to teach a few weeks back; Within seconds its encryption was shredded like a beehive at the mercy of a bear's claws, looking for its sweet, golden prize. Satya's eyes narrowed with similar satisfaction when she found hers: A direct link into the dead killer's client. _If_ _she can do it, so can I_ , she restated inwardly.

With a few more taps and clicks and a message was sent, simple but effective:

 _ **Maybe next time.**_

 _ **With love,**_

 _ **Max.**_

Her heart rushed once more, only this time with the adrenaline of success. Grinning ear to ear she looked up at the stars, each one set perfectly in its place far beyond the limits of what everyone thought possible. The sky was the limit, and it made her feel like dancing again, something she resolved to do once she returned to Higher New York.

She readied to leave the tablet at the scene, just as she'd found it, but her eye caught a glimpse of the hundreds of other messages in the client's inbox, nearly all of them labelled _M_ or _S_. The _M_ was no secret, she remembered from the briefing, but the growing internal query as to who the other letter belonged to brought with it an urge to scratch the curious itch. With a few more taps, the urge was indulged and the most recent correspondence was opened.

In that moment, the sky and the tablet came crashing down.

* * *

 _ **S:**_ **I understand that the deadline is near, but Project Legion is nearly complete. I just need a little more time.**

 _ **M:**_ **A good businessman, woman, or Omnic keeps their word. I've given you more time than you deserve and still you lie to me.**

 _ **S:**_ **I assure you I'm telling the truth. The first test is in two weeks. Once it's over and mass production begins, a billion dollars will look like pocket change.**

 _ **M:**_ **The last time you said that, I was about to have your fingernails wrenched out for stealing in Las Vegas. Perhaps if I had, you would have learned to spend responsibly.**

 _ **S:**_ **Watch it. You know that Oasis is interested as well.**

 _ **M:**_ **I also know that the Ministers appreciate good business Mr. Korpal, something that damn fools simply can't conduct.**

 _ **S:**_ **Perhaps it's time you learned not to insult your peers. If I were you, I'd start looking over my shoulder at night.**

 _ **M:**_ **No need to make threats. You'll get your time and nothing more, lest I deal with your thievery for what it is.**

* * *

Satya was speechless as the tablet shorted out in the hitman's blood, the only sound being her own breathing. _Sombra said he wasn't_ _involved_ , she reasoned desperately. _This can't be true_.

And yet, the location of the inbox said it all: Sanjay's personal holocomputer in Rio de Janeiro.

 _How?_


	18. Chapter 18: Making Sense

When she got home, Satya didn't feel like dancing.

As she stepped out the other end of the teleporter back into her apartment, a profound exhaustion swept over her like a rainstorm over a desert, feeding an insatiable wish for a very long shower, a strong cup of tea, and a deep night's sleep in hopes that she'd be able to wake up the next morning and put it all behind her. The desire was compounded even further when she nearly tripped on the stairs due to a leg that still felt like a pincushion.

But still, Satya reminded herself, tomorrow would be a new day. _I'll clear my head tonight, patch my wounds up, and begin my next assignment tomorrow. Things will make sense then._

They didn't.

The details for the assignment didn't unlock the next morning, or the morning after, or the morning after that. For a full, torturous week, Satya waited for her friend to provide the key to getting her life back on track, a key made so vital by the fact that her routine simply wasn't cutting it. No matter how many cups of Green Darjeeling she had, how much time and effort she devoted to her dances, or whatever new outlets she found for her free time such as days spent at the Life Complex's gymnasium learning unarmed martial arts. Even when she attempted a night at a bar on her own to try and recapture lightning in a bottle, her mind circled back around to what couldn't be unseen from that night in Monaco.

In retrospect, she wasn't surprised that Sanjay was a part of the same Conspiracy that Maximilien was, the one that Sombra feared so much. After the Calado incident Sanjay had done nothing to convince her to trust him again, but that wasn't what made her clench her teeth under her lips and lament another wasted night as she woke up on the seventh morning.

"Sombra said he wasn't involved," she repeated to herself yet again, before rolling her eyes and realizing just how stupid she sounded, yet again. This shouldn't have been bothering her, dammit! A few deep breaths and some repeats of her mantra and it should have become a non-issue!

She placed her hands on her lap and crisscrossed her legs on the bed as she dumped out all the clutter wracking her brain, pointing its focus towards the feelings of air swirling over her upper lip and her lungs working their process in her chest. She timed the phrase to begin with each unhurried inhale and end on the glacial exhale. Breathe in; _Order through peace_. Hold; _Peace through calm_. Breathe out; _Calm through order._

Breathe in... hold... breathe out.

Breathe in... hold... breathe out...

Breathe in... hold...

 _Did she know?_

Satya shook her head rapidly and let the stress drain away again. _Breathe out_. _Calm through order_.

Breathe in...

 _Did Sombra lie to me?_

Her fingers clawed through her hair as she growled in vexation and unfolded from her stance to make for the kitchen, but not even the rich smell of toasted rice cakes could remove the scowl and furrowed brow that marked her face. In a last-ditch effort she rummaged through her mind for something, anything, that she could divert her concentration to.

The only things her subconscious spat out were Sombra's card, the one she'd been told was for if they ever needed to talk, and temptation that tasted both sweet and sour.

It seemed like the only way...

Satya bit her tongue so hard she could feel the blood pooling in her cheeks, drowning out the taste but not the itch that remained to gnaw at her ideas of trust and self-reliance. _No_ , she protested to herself. _I can't, I WON'T. She's my friend, so I should trust her._

And yet, the itch still persisted...

Her phone was snatched up so fast off the countertop it barely had time to buzz, but as she opened it she crossed her free arm, expecting with the disdainful snort of returning boredom that whatever the notification was wasn't worth her time. On her phone's screensaver as she swiped it open, the notification read one word.

Her fingers moved in such an excited flurry that her phone was nearly fumbled out of their reach. Even before she'd read it Satya felt like a cathartic weight had been lifted off her shoulders. After a week of boredom and disorder, an open-mouthed smile greeted the message her friend had sent.

* * *

 ** _Qué onda, amiga?_**

 **I know that that last mission couldn't have been easy, but Maximilien isn't someone to worry about. Something tells me that when it comes down to it, all that sliminess isn't going to do him any good.**

 **But what can I say? That's then, this is now. Speaking of now, you'll want to get to the coordinates I've linked quickly. You'll meet a couple of my colleagues who will give you your next assignment.**

 _ **Todo mi** **amor**_ **,**

 **Sombra.**

 **P.S. Next chance we get, how's about we start the night off at Calaveras? Get a buzz on, see where things lead from there. I can't wait.**

* * *

Satya hadn't even finished reading the notice by the time she'd outfitted herself for field duty and a teleporter to the coordinates, already committed to memory, flowered five feet away. Without a moment's hesitation she stepped through it, leaving the shining dawn rising over luxurious Higher New York for a stark and dim warehouse, the last glimmers of twilight fading in the glass roof fifty feet above her head. Closing the portal behind her, she used the last gasps of the sunset to get a lay of the land under the evening shadows, performing a slow, three hundred sixty degree turn with careful steps that echoed faintly off the concrete floor. The light's spilled secrets revealed her to be alone in a securely locked building, save for a very large hover-truck loaded with an equally large crate. Whatever they were there for had to be important, but without any further education she didn't bother to make a guess.

The minutes that followed found Satya with little to do. Having taken a seat on an old but sturdy box, she double and triple-checked the coordinates to make sure she hadn't made a mistake. Sure enough, her phone showed, this was where she needed to be, but with the slow pace came an itch of curiosity: _Just where am I?_

At last, the final hurrah of the day surrendered to the encroaching dark. Heavy gray clouds veiled the stars, but the night sent its own sources of light through the windows, each one painted in the colours of a neon rainbow and twisted through glass tubes for the purpose of attracting a wandering eye.  
Her eyebrows raised and her head cocked to one side, Satya hopped off her perch to gain a closer look at the cacophony of light that swirled in the middle of the largest shadow on the solid floor. Within the chaos of the vibrant shades she saw a way to scratch her itch, a way much more orderly than any that could answer the mystery of the truck.

With absolute precision she circled the shapes, tracing a thin line of luminescent blue around the shape with her index finger as she went. The instant she stepped back from completing the circle her light shot upwards through the highest glass panel, ascending like a spotlight at a steep angle before ricocheting in all directions off the colossal tower that loomed its shadow back downward. Satya's neck craned so far back she worried about losing her balance, a concern rectified when she moved into the center of the warehouse, bathing in the neon colours and enveloped in the all-consuming shadow.

With the light bent to her will, she beckoned the thin line back to her fingers, moulding it like clay into a tablet shape until it took physical form as a tablet device that she held directly into the light's path. Through it, the vibrant mass of green, orange, pink, and purple shapes were filtered into clear pictures and their words translated into Hindu script: _Vacancy_ , _No Parking In The Market Square_ , and _Try Our New Galvanizing Treatment And Never Feel The Rust In Your Joints Again!_ were among the innumerable sales pitches that swarmed in like bees and came through her visor in a clean, orderly fashion. After just over half a minute, Satya lowered the filter and let it dissolve away, its purpose spent.

Among the cacophony of variety, one word had stood out as a constant: _Lijiang._

The name brought back old memories from years past in Vishkar, memories of walking in through the front door of the building that loomed so high overhead alongside Sanjay Korpal to 'negotiate' a deal for Lucheng Interstellar's experimental glove-mounted remote control, originally meant to operate deep-space mining probes. The deal had fallen through when her old handler had responded to the CEO's refusal with a veiled threat that referenced to the Horizon Lunar Colony's unexplained fate, making any further progress impossible without having to deal with the messy disorder of murder.

 _Murder_. Another word that stirred the pot of Satya's memory and jumped from one train to another, though its attribute was less the grimace of hindsight's twenty-twenty vision and more a one-two punch. The right jab brought the physical sickness of a churning sea in her stomach, while the left hook pursed lips and fueled a deep sense of irony.  
Suddenly, the low rumble of thunder rolled through the sky and echoed in her ears, as the clouds entrapping the moon tightened into thick banks and released their rainy cargo. The gentle patter on the glass and the neon reflections dancing through their watery mirrors physically soothed her in a way little else could, but its emotional effect was no good at erecting a roadblock against the direction her thoughts were going in.

 _Murder_. The word sounded more disgusting with each repetition. She couldn't say with any truth that she hadn't killed before, but only because it had been them or her. How many times Sanjay had questioned, argued against, or chewed her out for such a belief was a number she knew but didn't keep track of, simply because it didn't matter. Death was cold, random, indiscriminate, chaotic, slinking in the shadows like a tiger waiting to pounce. It wasn't fooled by a mask or intimidated by meager displays. Death, she knew, didn't wait for a reaction.

It just came.

" _Enjoying the view?_ "

If it had been literally any voice on the planet other than that snarling, sandpaper-rough whisper, her heart may not have stopped cold for the next fifteen seconds. But it wasn't and it did, along with every other part of her. At the same time she both did and didn't know what had overcome her; For sure it wasn't the raw startle of when she first met Sombra, or the mind-racing terror of her encounter with Maximilien, or even the frozen shock of finding Sanjay's connection to the Conspiracy. She just froze, drawing blank after blank on being able to do anything.

Until a hand wrapped around her shoulder and turned her around one hundred eighty degrees. Then, she realized it.

 _Pure, abject dread_.

The cold burn of his touch, the pairs of soulless eyes, the dual memories of first being met with the cold, pale face of death itself and of her life being physically crushed in a malevolent hand. She'd seen it all, felt it all, brushed with death itself twice and gotten away with it.

But it came again, just like death always did. It just came.

"You gonna stand there all night or are you gonna answer me?" the ghost demanded.

Satya's own mask felt cracked in a thousand places, but it was better than naked emotion. "No - yes. Sorry, about that, I mean. I'm guessing you... both are here for the assignment?"

The other one raised an eyebrow, but kept her expression utterly blank. "That depends," she purred. "Are you?"

Satya wringed her hair in one hand as fear made an easy sentence brutally difficult. "Um, well... of am yes I cours- I mean, yes, of course I am. Sombra sent me."

The living shadow scoffed. "Did she now? Well, at least you're on time."

The blue-skinned woman next turned over towards him. "This isn't right," she remarked. "De Kuiper was supposed to be our third. This changes everything."

"Moira said he wasn't ready, and the last thing we need is him on a bad day. Otherwise, this changes nothing."

" _C'est une amatrice_. She won't-"

An iridescent blue polyhedron took form without warning, spreading throughout the warehouse, interrupting their conversation, and outshining the neon reflections. Satya waited for them to look back over in her direction before warping the shape into a wide array of others.  
"I'm hardly an amateur," she stated, a rush of assertiveness filling in the cracks. "and I assure you, whatever you need me to do," In an instant she shrunk the creation back into her hand, crushing it in her fist. "I can."

The unfeeling woman simply walked over to the truck, but the shadow sent over a look that Satya couldn't quite put her finger on. The closest she could get was that he was sizing her up. "What's your name, kid?" he growled.

"Satya Vaswani." she answered with the utmost formality. "At your service."

"Not what I meant," he snapped in reply. "Plausible deniability is essential to this mission." He moved in closer, pointing a clawed finger right at her nose as he stopped with less than six inches between them. "That means you either tell me your name, or I give you one."

Satya planted a foot back almost out of instinct, but she knew it wasn't needed. Anonymity was a concept that had allowed her to get away with a lot of Vishkar's dirty work, and the name she'd chosen as part of the academy's graduation ceremony was one that had served her well. "Symmetra," she answered. "What's yours?"

After a head turn that suggested mild annoyance, the ghost first gestured to himself, then to the woman. "Reaper, Widowmaker. Now, I assume you know what to do here?"

Satya said nothing; The feeling that had paralyzed her was beginning to return and most of her attention was dedicated to suppressing it. Besides, the answer he was clearly looking for would have been a lie.

"In that case," Reaper said through a sigh. "just do _EXACTLY_ what I tell you, and this'll all go smoothly." With that, a cloud of inky smoke formed around his lower half, allowing him to float over to the truck where Widowmaker waited for the both of them.

For the first time since they'd appeared, Satya moved of her own volition. Each step forward almost felt like trying to walk through a raging river, but the further she went the more her own mask felt as invisible as it was, and the better it did its job of filtering out the purpose of Reaper's physical mask. A stray smile and a comforting thought even crossed her, but she welcomed both.

It had been a long week, and things were finally making sense again.


End file.
